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Glite Dictionary
🤒 A skin infection 💎 A red stone
carbuncle

carbuncle

1 9.9
A painful skin infection with a group of boils that drain pus
  • noun
  • /ˈkɑːrˌbʌŋ.kəl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : carbúnculo
  • I thought it would be a carbuncle or a boil, but a hand?

Examples

  • At the post-test, the improvement in diagnostic skills was noticed for diagnoses such as carbuncle, pityriasis versicolor, erythema multiforme, and psoriasis.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Green Island is a carbuncle oozing all over my skin.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • I lanced them finally with the point of a heated knife, the deep carbuncle and knots and boils, to make my husband whole again.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The doctor advised me to see a specialist for the carbuncle on my back.

  • He felt intense pain from the carbuncle that had formed on his neck.

  • If untreated, a carbuncle can lead to serious complications and require surgery.

Synonyms

boil
vscarbuncle
35 4.6

A painful swollen spot on the skin filled with pus

is a larger more severe infection of several such spots with multiple openings
pustule
vscarbuncle
  • Specialized
5 8.1

A small red raised spot on the skin filled with pus

is a severe cluster of these small lesions with multiple draining openings

Antonyms

health
∞ 1.0

The condition of a person's body and mind, especially being free from illness or injury

wellness
52 3.2

Good physical and mental health that people try to keep

How Severe

systemic
  • Specialized
70 6.5
carbuncle
  • Specialized
1 9.9
abscess
  • Specialized
23 7.5
boil
35 4.6
pimple
62 1.0

Surface Forms

carbuncle singular
carbuncles plural

Etymology

Carbuncle for a skin sore also comes from Latin carbunculus, 'small coal', because the red, hot lump looked like a burning coal, so the word now means a painful cluster of boils.