acriculus

Etymology
, stem of

Usage notes
This appears as a hapax legomenon in the corpus of Cicero's works in the passage quoted above. The difference in meaning between the diminutive and the base adjective is disputed: Lewis and Short defines it as "somewhat sharp, testy", i.e. as " to a small extent" or "possessing a small amount of the quality described by the word ", but Petersen argues that this reading of the word as a "diminutive of quality" is incorrect, and that the diminutive instead has a deteriorative sense (serving to express a negative shade of emotion such as contempt) relative to the original adjective.