A New Pelican Verb

I'd like to share a verb with you. Patrick made an important discovery as to the origin of the H in Jesus H. Christ, but I won't steal his beans, though, and spill the thunder.

However, his research prompted me to read about Christian symbolism, and the pelican.


1. The pelican is a bird.

2. In olden days the pelican was a symbol of sacrifice.

3. Because they thought it fed its young by piercing its own breast and feeding them its blood (eww)

This is referred to in a Shakespeare play, but I can't remember which one, and a Google search for "shakespeare pelican" yielded like a million hits for Pelican®-brand Shakespearean plays. Thanks for nothing, Pelican!

We'll say it was Romeo and Juliet. You remember that scene where Juliet's like:

The pelican's beak, the pelican's blood.
The six-legged monkey, fell down in the mud.
Violet's a tramp, and the roses are blue
Oh that my name, could be Montague too!

I think it's in the sixth act.

Anyways, ad rem nostrum, the verb.

The verb is VULN.

vuln

tr.v. vulned, vuln·ing, vulns To wound (oneself) by biting at the breast. Used of the pelican, which was once believed to feed its young with its blood, as a heraldic motif and symbol of Christ. [From Latin vulnerāre, to wound; see vulnerable.]

I think it could make a good adjective. A vulning confession? A vulning gesture?

I tried to learn more about this and googled "breast bite", but I got a LOT of pictures that were not work appropriate at all.