carbuncle
Americannoun
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Pathology. a painful circumscribed inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue, resulting in suppuration and sloughing, and having a tendency to spread somewhat like a boil, but more serious in its effects.
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a gemstone, especially a garnet, cut with a convex back and a cabochon surface.
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Also called London brown. a dark grayish, red-brown color.
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Obsolete. any rounded red gem.
adjective
noun
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an extensive skin eruption, similar to but larger than a boil, with several openings: caused by staphylococcal infection
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a rounded gemstone, esp a garnet cut without facets
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a dark reddish-greyish-brown colour
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of carbuncle
1150–1200; Middle English < Anglo-French < Latin carbunculus kind of precious stone, tumor, literally, live coal, equivalent to carbōn- (stem of carbō ) burning charcoal + -culus -cule 1, apparently assimilated to derivates from short-vowel stems; cf. homunculus
Vocabulary lists containing carbuncle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Carbuncle Awards, run by architecture magazine Urban Realm, were inspired by a scathing comment about modern building design made by King Charles back in the 1980s.
From BBC • Sep. 22, 2025
Winning the Carbuncle Award in 2010 was embarrassing for John O' Groats.
From BBC • Jan. 7, 2025
The Carbuncle Cup, for the ugliest building of the year, was launched by Building Design magazine in 2006, "for crimes against architecture".
From The Guardian • May 21, 2013
One, Strata SE1, won the Carbuncle Cup for worst building of the year.
From The Guardian • Mar. 10, 2013
Sullivan, in his history of Maine, written since the Revolution, remarks that even then the existence of the Great Carbuncle was not entirely discredited.
From Twice Told Tales by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
