Definition of "vermiculation" [ver•mic•u•la•tion]

• Motion resembling that of a worm, especially the wavelike contractions of the intestine; peristalsis. (noun)
• Wormlike marks or carvings, as in a mosaic or masonry. (noun)
• The condition of being worm-eaten. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I love the moth names and I love The Birds of the Western Palearctic for “vermiculation”—a word I have only encountered in these and other similar pages of defeat."
• "Plates of Sevres trellissed by the delicate vermiculation of their white fluting, ver-ticillated in gold or bound upon the creamy plane of their pâte tendre by the gay relief of a golden ribbon, finally a whole service of silver on which are displayed those Lucinian myrtles which Dubarry would recognise."
• "Me reading had twisted his universe all out of shape and now he was going to conspire in this perverted vermiculation."