a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, originally diminutive nouns(capsule; globule; nodule) or noun derivatives of verbs(ligule).
Origin: < French < Latin -ulus, -ula, -ulum diminutive formative with nouns of the 1st and 2nd declensions ≪ *-el- (compare -cle1, -elle, -ole1); the deverbal suffix -ulus, etc. (compare cingulum, tumulus) is of distinct orig.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
