Pl. -a. [mod. L. tentācul-um, f. tentā-re = temptāre to feel, try; cf. TENTACLE, TENTACULE, and see -CULE.] A feeler; = TENTACLE.
1752. J. Hill, Hist. Anim., 100. The upper lip is prominent beyond the rest of the mouth, and has two tentacula.
1804. Shaw, Gen. Zool., V. II. 360. From each side springs a long and fexible tentaculum or feeler, of a flattened shape.
1880. Bastian, Brain, iv. 71. This ganglion receives branches from the tentacula guarding the orifice of the oral funnel.
fig. 1867. Bagehot, Eng. Constit., ix. (1882), 275. The political characteristic of the early Greeks, and of the early Romans, too, is that out of the tentacula of a monarchy they developed the organs of a republic.
1893. McCarthy, Dictator, xxiv. He had seen only too clearly which way her love was stretching its tentacula.
