Forms: 4– tunicle, 4–6 -ycle, 5–7 -acle, (5–6 -akyl, -ekil, -ek(k)el(l), -yk(k)il(l), -ycale, tuinicle, twynykil, tunnycall); 4–5 tonacle, (5 -ecle, -icle, -ycle, -ykyl, -ykle, -akle, -ucle, 6 -aculle); (5 tenekylle, -ucle, 6 -acull, tin-, tynacle, -akle, tynnacle, Sc. -akil, -akyl, -akel). [ad. L. tunicula dim. of tunica TUNIC.
But it may also represent OF. tunikle for tunike (cf. bouticle, dalmaticle, triacle: see M. Antoine Thomas in Romania, XXXIX. 231.]
† 1. A small tunic; also fig. a wrapping, covering, integument. Obs.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XV. 163. As gladde of a goune of a graye russet As of a tunicle of tarse or of a trye scarlet.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 1547. Doctours & deuynours … tyrett all in tonacles of tartaren webbys.
14[?]. Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 721/28. Hec tunicula, a tunakyl.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Tunicle..., a little jacket or coat.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 789. The Chaldaick Philosophers bestow upon the Soul, Two Interiour Tunicles or Vestments.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 171. This tunicle of the soul, whether it be called pure æther, or luciform vehicle, or animal spirit.
2. Eccl. A vestment resembling the dalmatic, worn by subdeacons over the alb (and also by bishops between the alb and the dalmatic) at celebrations of the Eucharist.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., IX. v. 595. A prestis westment alhaille, Withe tunakyl [v.r. tynnakyllis] and dalmatyk.
1495. in Somerset Medieval Wills (1901), 339. 2 Tonucles with the hole appurtenances.
1502. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., II. 288. To the woman that maid the frenȝeis for tunycales…, xs.
1536. Reg. Riches, in Antiq. Sarisb. (1771), 197. Ten Chesibles … with dyvers Albs and Tunicles.
1548–9. (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Communion (Rubric), Albes with tunacles.
1583. Fulke, Defence, iv. 132. If the word Deacon, be taken for such an one, as at a popish masse standeth in a disguised tunicle, holding a patten.
1849. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, I. v. (1903), I. 315. The sleeves of the tunicle were neither so wide nor so long, nor did its skirts reach quite so far down as those of the dalmatic.
1877. J. D. Chambers, Div. Worship, 54. The Tunicle of the Subdeacon and Dalmatic of the Deacon are nearly identical.
† b. One vested in a tunicle; a subdeacon or ‘clerk.’ Obs.
1554. Ludlow Churchw. Acc. (Camden), 56. Item, paid for a tonaculle to cary hally water.
† 3. A membrane enclosing a bodily organ, part of a plant, etc.; = TUNIC 4. Obs. (or rare arch.)
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. v. (1495), g iv/2. The glasy humour … kepyth the humour cristalyn [of the eye] fro touchyng and sharpnes of tunycles.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., I. ix. 8. The tunicles or rymes of the arteries ben of harder substaunce than the tunicles proceeding from the veynes.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XIII. iv. I. 387. Some of these stones be … covered with many skins or pellicles, and others with fewer: ye shall have in this Date, those tunicles thicke and grosse; in that, thinner and more fine.
1725. Sloane, Jamaica, II. 313. The stomach had a very thick inward tunicle.
1912. Nation, 5 Oct., 13/1. Our modern doctors apparently leave the tunicles of the brain unpurged.
Hence Tunicled a. nonce-wd., enclosed in or as in a tunicle.
1652. A. Wilson, Pref. Verses, in Benlowes, Theoph. The distances of every Sphere Which in full Orbs do move, tunicled so That the lesse Spheres within the greater go.
