Noun

1. The image of Jesus's face believed to have been made on the cloth with which St Veronica wiped his face as he went to be crucified; or the cloth used for this.
   • 1973, Nicholas Monsarrat, The Kapillan of Malta:

     A veil that had wiped off the sweat of Christ? Who could possibly believe that? (…) The only true Veronica of this century was the veronica of the matador – the classic slow swing of the cape before the bull’s face, imitating that holy wiping, mocking it.

2. A devotional image of Jesus's face.
   • 1988, Anthony Burgess, Any Old Iron:

     He wiped the lady’s martini glass, having had some trouble with a kind of veronica of lipstick, spat in it viciously, then washed it again.

3. A circular swinging movement of the cape, used to avoid the bull.
   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     The cougher makes a lunge. Slothrop sweeps aside, gives him a quick veronica with his cape, sticks his foot out and trips the kid, who lies on the ground cursing

   • 1989, Martin Amis, London Fields, Vintage 2003, p. 357:

     He stepped aside as a fight got going between an attendant and some kid by the Alkool display, hopping backwards in a practised veronica when a bottle broke, fearful for his flares.

4. A flower of the genus Veronica, usually having blue petals.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 871:

     meadows full of wildflowers that seemed to Kit enormous, violets as big as your hand, yellow lilies and blue veronica you could shelter from the rain under

   • 1978, Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea, Vintage 1999, p. 11:

     There are also (placed there by man or nature?) quite a lot of skinny fuchsias and dense veronicas, all in flower, and some kind of rather attractive grey-leaved sage.