worm

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɜːm/
• (US) enPR: wûrm, IPA^(key): /wɝm/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Audio (UK):

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m

worm (plural worms)

1. A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     ‘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. […]’

2. More loosely, any of various tubular invertebrates resembling annelids but not closely related to them, such as velvet worms, acorn worms, flatworms, or roundworms.
   • 1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. ”, in Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. , volume I, London: Edward Moxon , published 1839, →OCLC, page 216:

     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 […]

3. (archaic) A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent^[1] or any kind of dragon.
4. (fantasy, science fiction) Either a mythical "dragon" (especially wingless),^[2] a gigantic sea serpent, or a creature that resembles a Mongolian death worm.^[3]
5. A contemptible or devious being.

   Don't try to run away, you little worm!

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Psalms 22:6:

     But I am a worme, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

   • 1707, Isaac Watts, “Godly Sorrow ariſing from the Sufferings of Chriſt”, in Hymns and Spiritual Songs, London: J. Humfreys, page 86:

     Would he devote that Sacred Head / For ſuch a Worm as I?

6. (computing) A self-replicating malware that propagates through a network.

   When Trevor opened his email, a worm spread to 100 people in his address book.

7. (cricket) A graphical representation of the total runs scored across a number of overs.
8. Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
   • 1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick exercises:

     If the Worms of the Nut or Spindle be worn, the Spindle must be examin'd by the Smith

   1. A spiral instrument or screw, often like a double corkscrew, used for drawing balls from firearms.
   2. The spiral wire of a corkscrew.
   3. (anatomy) A muscular band in the tongue of some animals, such as dogs; the lytta.
   4. The condensing tube of a still, often curved and wound to save space.
   5. A short revolving screw whose threads drive, or are driven by, a worm wheel or rack by gearing into its teeth.
9. (archaic or poetic) Any creeping or crawling animal, such as a snake, snail, or caterpillar.
   • 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.

   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     […] No, ’tis slander,
     Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
     Outvenoms all the worms of Nile […]

   • 1867, Dante Alighieri, “The Divine Comedy”, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., Inferno‎, volume I, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, Canto 6, lines 22-24, p. 35:

     When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
     His mouth he opened and displayed his tusks;
     Not a limb had he that was motionless.

10. (informal or poetic) A maggot.

    Food for the worms.

11. (figuratively) An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse.
    • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

      The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!

12. (mathematics) A strip of linked tiles sharing parallel edges in a tiling.
13. (anatomy) The lytta.
14. (preceded by definite article) A dance, or dance move, in which the dancer lies on the floor and undulates the body horizontally thereby moving forwards.

• It is common to use the plural form worms to refer to intestinal or other internal parasites.
• Although the use of the "worm" to mean "dragon" or "serpent" is archaic, those meanings are in current use in the word "wyrm" which is a doublet of "worm". Wyrm is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English.

worm (third-person singular simple present worms, present participle worming, simple past and past participle wormed)

1. (transitive) To make (one's way) with a crawling motion.

   We wormed our way through the underbrush.

2. (intransitive) To move with one's body dragging the ground.
   • 1919, William Joseph Long, How animals talk: and other pleasant studies of birds and beast:

     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 […].

3. (intransitive, figuratively) To work one's way by artful or devious means.
   • , 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:

     When debates and fretting jealousy / Did worm and work within you more and more, / Your colour faded.

4. (transitive, figuratively) To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate.

   He wormed his way into the organization.

   • 2021 May 27, Andrew Orlowski, “You think the BBC is biased? Check out Wokepedia”, in The Telegraph‎:

     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.

5. (often followed by out) To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means.
   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, The Presbyterians Plea of Merit:

     They […] find themselves wormed out of all power.

6. (transitive, figuratively, in “worm out of”) 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).
   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 17, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, , published 1850, →OCLC:

     They […] wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell.

   • 1913, Mrs. 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., , , →OCLC, page 1738:

     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."

7. (transitive, nautical) To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving.

   Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

   • 1841, Benjamin J. Totten, Naval Text-Book‎:

     Ropes […] are generally wormed before they are served.

8. (transitive) To deworm (an animal).
9. (transitive) 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.
   • 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:

     The men […] assisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.

10. (transitive) To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm.

• The Free Dictionary, Farlex Inc., 2010.

• mrow

worm

1. Soft mutation of gorm.
2. Mixed mutation after 'th of gorm.

• wurm

• IPA^(key): /ʋɔrm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: worm
• Rhymes: -ɔrm

From Middle Dutch worm, from Old Dutch *wurm, *worm, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis. Compare English worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Danish orm.

worm m (plural wormen, diminutive wormpje n)

1. worm, vernacular term for various, mostly legless invertebrates; often nematodes or legless arthropod larvae.

• Afrikaans: wurm
• Berbice Creole Dutch: worum
• Negerhollands: worm, wurum

• pier

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

worm

1. inflection of wormen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• werm, wirm, wurm, wyrm, wyrme, wrim, worme

From Old English wyrm, from Proto-West Germanic *wurmi, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwurm/, /ˈwɛrm/, /ˈwirm/

worm (plural wormes or wormen)

1. A worm or similar small wormlike animal that lives in the ground; especially in the following special senses:
   1. A wormish insect that damages plants or plant-based material (e.g. a termite).
   2. A wormish insect that damages human remains.
   3. A parasitic worm; especially one living in the stomach.
2. A crawling animal; an animal that moves upon the ground.
3. An animal regarded as harmful and annoying.
4. A snake or snake-like monster.
5. A dragon, drake, or wyrm (mythological fire-breathing winged lizard)
6. A beast that inhabits Hell; causing suffering to its inhabitants.
7. A pauper, miser, or other contemptuous individual.
8. regret, forgiveness; the twanging of the heartstrings.
9. evil, malice; that which promotes maliciousness.
10. (biblical) The snake of Eden.
11. (Christianity, rare) Satan, the Devil.
12. (veterinary, rare) A muscle underneath the tongue of a dog seen as increasing the risk of rabies.

• glouworm
• wormwode

• English: worm
• Scots: worm, wirm

• “wǒrm, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-02.

Portuguese Wikipedia has an article on:

worm

Wikipedia ^pt

Unadapted borrowing from English worm.

worm m (plural worms)

1. (computer security) worm (self-replicating program)