army worm

Multiple Entries:
  army worm    worm  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
army worm

▶noun

• 1 any of a destructive mass of caterpillars of certain species of moth, which feed on crops.

• 2 any of the small maggots of certain gnats, which move in large numbers within secreted slime.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
worm/wɜːm/

▶noun

• 1 an earthworm or other creeping or burrowing invertebrate animal having a long, slender soft body and no limbs. [Annelida, Nematoda (roundworms), Platyhelminthes (flatworms), and other phyla.]

  ■ (worms) intestinal or other internal parasites.

  ■ used in names of long, slender insect larvae and other creatures, e.g. army worm, slow-worm.

  ■ a maggot regarded as eating dead bodies buried in the ground.

• 2 informal a weak or despicable person.

• 3 the threaded cylinder in a worm gear.

• 4 the coiled pipe of a still in which the vapour is cooled and condensed.

• 5 Computing a self-replicating program able to propagate itself across a network, typically having a detrimental effect.

▶verb

• 1 move by crawling or wriggling.

• 2 (worm one's way into) insinuate one's way into.

• 3 (worm something out of) obtain information from by cunning persistence.

• 4 treat (an animal) with a preparation designed to expel parasitic worms.

• 5 Nautical, archaic make (a rope) smooth by winding thread between the strands.

– derivatives
worm-like adjective.

– origin OE wyrm (n.), of Gmc origin.