caruncle /kə-RUN-kəl/. noun. A fleshy outgrowth. A naked excrescence of tissue. For example: a turkey’s wattle or a person’s dewlap. From Latin caruncula (little piece of flesh), diminutive of caro (flesh).
“I was so scattered, I’m still not sure what to write: About my back aching from where I’d slept? my head still gauzed, Pharaohnically wrapped, from when I’d been woken up? about the cut on my neck? the slit from chin’s caruncle to neck like an against the grain shaving mishap, just healing?” (Joshua Cohen)
“Crooke states that the hymen is not a single membrane but is really made up of eight parts, ‘caruncles’ and membranes, and says that ‘all these particles together make the form of the cup of a little rose half blowne.'” (Hanne Blank)
“We had plenty of farmyard creatures, as, for example, rabbits, the most oval animal of all, if you know what I mean; and choleric turkeys with carbuncular caruncles…” (Vladimir Nabokov)
“His Eminence slapped him again: ‘Vainglorious hypocrite, don’t you know your soul looks like a turkey’s? It pecks its way close to the ground, shaped like a peg, it pecks and pegs, peck by peck it pegs away. Soul of a pecker! A pecker blinkered by its engorged snoods, your eyes can only see the ground to peck, and nothing more. You selfish gobbler! I see them well, I see the waddles and caruncles on your soul!'” (Giulio Tononi)
Select Synonyms: tassel, wattle, cockscomb, aigrette, crista, copple.
Elsewhere: Wordnik.