Other forms: carbuncles
A carbuncle is a large painful boil, or a red gemstone. A carbuncle on his neck, treat the carbuncle, a carbuncle in the setting.
The medical one is a cluster of connected boils and needs treatment rather than squeezing. The gem sense is old and means a red stone, usually a garnet. Prince Charles famously called a proposed extension a monstrous carbuncle, and the phrase stuck.
1nouncarbuncleA large painful boil, or a red gemstone.
“The doctor lanced the painful carbuncle on the back of his neck.”
carbuncle is a boil, or a gem.
The Latin is a coal. A carbuncle is red and hot like one, whether it is the boil on the neck or the stone in the ring.
hooks ontocoal
Latin carbunculus means a little coal, from carbo, coal — for the glowing red of both senses.
Latin
carbunculus — a small coal; a reddish kind of precious stone; a kind of tumor
Old French
carbuncle
Middle English
carbuncle
English, today
carbuncle
Built from
From Middle English carbuncle, charbocle, from Old French carbuncle, charbuncle, from Latin carbunculus (“a small coal; a reddish kind of precious stone; a kind of tumor”), diminutive of carbō (“a coal, charcoal”). a doublet of Garfinkel and Garfunkel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA