worm
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
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Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *wurmiz
Proto-West Germanic *wurmi
Old English wyrm
Middle English worm
English worm
From Middle English werm, wirm, worm, worme, wrim, wurm, wyrm, wyrme, from Old English weorm, wurm, wyrm, from Proto-West Germanic *wurmi, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (“worm; snake”), from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis (“worm; larva”), 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 North Frisian wörem, wörm, Würem (“worm”), Saterland Frisian Wurm, Wúurm (“worm”), West Frisian wjirm (“worm”), Alemannic German Wüüre (“worm”), Cimbrian bórm (“worm”), burm (“snake”), Dutch worm, wurm (“worm”), German Gewürm (“vermin”), Wurm (“worm”), Low German Worm (“worm”), Luxembourgish Wuerm (“worm”), Mòcheno burm (“snake”), Vilamovian vūəm, wüm (“worm”), Yiddish וואָרעם (vorem, “worm”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish orm (“worm”), Faroese and Icelandic ormur (“worm”), Norwegian Nynorsk orm (“worm”), yrme, yrmle (“female snake with offspring”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌼𐍃 (waurms, “snake”), Kildin Sami уррьм (urr’m, “gadfly larva”), Skolt Sami uʹrmm (“gadfly larva”).
Indo-European cognates include Latin vermis (“worm”), Ancient Greek ῥόμοξ (rhómox), ῥόμος (rhómos, “woodworm”), Albanian rrime (“rainworm”).
Inflected forms:
form: worms
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: worme
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: worms
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: worming
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wormed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: wormed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: worme
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
pos: noun
examples: ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’
gloss: More loosely, any of various tubular invertebrates resembling annelids but not closely related to them, such as velvet worms, acorn worms, flatworms, or roundworms. See Appendix:English worms.
pos: noun
examples: Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung
Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.
A woman’s shape, now lank and cold and blue,
The dwelling of the many-coloured worm,
Hung there […]
gloss: Any creeping or crawling animal, such as a snake, snail, or caterpillar.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
poetic
examples: 1561, Geneva Bible, Acts 28:3-4,
And when Paul had gathered a nomber of stickes, & laid them on the fyre, there came a viper out of the heat, and leapt on his hand. Now when the Barbarians sawe the worme hang on his hand, they said among them selues This man surely is a murtherer, whome, thogh he hathe escaped the sea, yet Vengeance hathe not suffred to liue.
[…] No, ’tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile […]
When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
His mouth he opened and displayed his tusks;
Not a limb had he that was motionless.
gloss: A maggot or any other insect larva with similar shape and behavior.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
informal
poetic
examples: Those little wriggling worms are the larvae of flies who laid eggs here.
gloss: A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent or any kind of dragon.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: In the Cross of Cong (A.D. 1123) the Celtic inter-laced patterns are found side by side with the "worm-dragon" ornament ..
Indeed the allusion to the more renowned worm killed by the Wælsing is sufficient indication that the poet selected a dragon of well-founded purpose[.]
The after fifty years a foul worm, a dragon, took it upon itself to hold sway through the heavens at night.
gloss: A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent or any kind of dragon.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
gloss: A contemptible or devious being.
pos: noun
examples: Don't try to run away, you little worm!
But I am a worme, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
Would he devote that Sacred Head
For ſuch a Worm as I?
Lord, why is this, I trembling cry'd,
Wilt thou purſue thy worm to death?
gloss: A self-replicating program that propagates through a network, differing from a virus in usually lacking any destructive effects.
pos: noun
examples: When Trevor opened his email, a worm spread to 100 people in his address book.
gloss: A graphical representation of the total runs scored across a number of overs.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
examples: If the Worms of the Nut or Spindle be worn, the Spindle must be examin'd by the Smith
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
gloss: Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
pos: noun
gloss: An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
gloss: A strip of linked tiles sharing parallel edges in a tiling.
pos: noun
gloss: The lytta.
pos: noun
gloss: A dance, or dance move, in which the dancer lies on the floor and undulates the body horizontally thereby moving forwards.
pos: noun
gloss: To make (one's way) with a crawling motion.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: We wormed our way through the underbrush.
I took a firm grip of Josella's hand, and we started to worm our way along as unobviously as possible.
gloss: To move with one's body dragging the ground.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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[…].
gloss: To work one's way by artful or devious means.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: When debates and fretting jealousy / Did worm and work within you more and more, / Your colour faded.
gloss: To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: He wormed his way into the organization.
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.
gloss: To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means.
pos: verb
tags: often
examples: They […]find themselves wormed out of all power.
gloss: 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).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: They[…]wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell.
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."
gloss: To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
Ropes[…]are generally wormed before they are served.
gloss: To deworm (an animal).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The men[…] assisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.
gloss: To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
Related words: caterpillar
grub
lumbricine
maggot
Trojan horse
vermian
vermiform
virus
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: шнек
roman: šnek
lang: Czech
word: závit
lang: Dutch
word: draad
lang: Dutch
word: schroef
lang: Finnish
word: jengat
lang: Finnish
word: kierre
lang: French
word: vis sans fin
lang: German
word: Gewinde
lang: Hungarian
word: csavarmenet
lang: Low German
word: Gewinn
lang: Spanish
word: guirnalda
lang: Spanish
word: filete
lang: Spanish
word: rosca