worm
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /wɜːm/
enpr: wûrm
ipa: /wɝm/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m
homophone: wyrm
Forms: form: worms
form: worming
form: wormed
form: wormed
Etymology: From Middle English worm, werm, wurm, wirm, from Old English wyrm (“worm, snake”), from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis, possibly from *wer- (“to turn”). Doublet of vermin and wyrm, the latter of which is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English.
(computing): First computer usage by John Brunner in his 1975 book The Shockwave Rider.
Cognates
Germanic cognates include Dutch worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Swedish orm (“snake”), Norwegian Nynorsk orm (“earthworm or snake”), Danish orm and Yiddish וואָרעם (vorem).
Indo-European cognates include Latin vermis (“worm”), Lithuanian var̃mas (“insect, midge”), Albanian rrime (“rainworm”), Ancient Greek ῥόμος (rhómos, “woodworm”).
Senses: examples: text: We wormed our way through the underbrush.
glosses: To make (one's way) with a crawling motion.
examples: text: Inch by inch I wormed along the secret passageway, flat to the ground, not once raising my head, hardly daring to pull a full breath[…].
ref: 1919, William Joseph Long, How animals talk: and other pleasant studies of birds and beast:
glosses: To move with one's body dragging the ground.
examples: text: When debates and fretting jealousy / Did worm and work within you more and more, / Your colour faded.
ref: [1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To work one's way by artful or devious means.
examples: text: He wormed his way into the organization.
text: With “facts” generated by Wikipedia worming themselves into every corner of our digital lives, such as your Alexa speaker or iPhone, perhaps it’s the ubiquity of information that’s the problem – and something that should concern us all.
ref: 2021 May 27, Andrew Orlowski, “You think the BBC is biased? Check out Wokepedia”, in The Telegraph:
glosses: To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate.
examples: text: They […]find themselves wormed out of all power.
ref: 1731, Jonathan Swift, The Presbyterians Plea of Merit:
glosses: To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means.
raw_tags: followed by out
examples: text: They[…]wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell.
ref: 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 17, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
text: He nodded. "Mum's the word, Mrs. Bunting! It'll all be in the last editions of the evening newspapers—it can't be kep' out. There'd be too much of a row if twas!"
 "Are you going off to that public-house now?" she asked.
 "I've got a awk'ard job—to try and worm something out of the barmaid."
ref: 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter XXII, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 1738:
glosses: To drag out of, to get information that someone is reluctant or unwilling to give (through artful or devious means or by pleading or asking repeatedly).
raw_tags: in “worm out of”
examples: text: Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
text: Ropes[…]are generally wormed before they are served.
ref: 1841, Benjamin J. Totten, Naval Text-Book:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving.
glosses: To deworm (an animal).
examples: text: The men[…] assisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.
ref: 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
glosses: To cut the worm, or lytta, from under the tongue of (a dog, etc.) for the purpose of checking a disposition to gnaw, and formerly supposed to guard against canine madness.
glosses: To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm.
Related terms: caterpillar
grub
lumbricine
maggot
Trojan horse
vermian
vermiform
virus