cankerworm
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English
Etymology
Noun
cankerworm (plural cankerworms)
- Either of two caterpillars, the larvae of geometrid moths, that are destructive to fruit, buds and leaves.
- (figurative) A corrupting or destructive force.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- O cursed Eld the cankerworme of writs, / How may these rimes, so rude as doth appeare, / Hope to endure, sith workes of heauenly wits / Are quite deuourd, and brought to nought by little bits?