-uncle, suffix
representing OF. -uncle (-oncle) and ultimately L. -unculus, -uncula, in a few words, in most of which it retains its diminutive force. The earliest of these is carbuncle from the 13–14th cent.; † portiuncle appears in the 15th, caruncle, furuncle, homuncle in the 17th, peduncle in the 18th, and oratiuncle in the 19th. New formations without Latin originals are rare, and the suffix has little independent existence though occasionally employed as in the following examples.
| 1825 Bentham Offic. Apt. Maximized, Indic. (1830) 71 Not a reformatiuncle of his (as Hartley would have called it) did Romilly ever bring forward, that he had not first brought to me. 1875 [see pseudonymuncle]. |