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   worm

   /wəːm/

   noun

   • 1. any of a number of creeping or burrowing invertebrate animals with long, slender soft bodies and no limbs.
   • ▪ an earthworm.
   • ▪ intestinal or other internal parasites: "she ate so much so often that I thought she had worms"
   • ▪ used in names of long, slender insect larvae, especially those in fruit or wood, e.g. armyworm, woodworm.
   • ▪ used in names of other animals that resemble worms in some way, e.g. slow-worm, shipworm.
   • ▪ a maggot regarded as eating corpses buried in the ground: "food for worms"
   • ▪ a dragon or other mythical snake-like reptile. archaic
   • 2. a weak or despicable person (often used as a general term of abuse): informal, derogatory "it was unbearable that such a worm could be so successful"
   • 3. a helical device or component.
   • ▪ the threaded cylinder in a worm gear.
   • ▪ the coiled pipe of a still in which the vapour is cooled and condensed.
   • 4. a self-replicating program able to propagate itself across a network, typically having a detrimental effect.

   verb

   • 1. move with difficulty by crawling or wriggling: "I wormed my way along the roadside ditch"
   • ▪ move (something) into a confined space by wriggling it: "I wormed my right hand between my body and the earth"
   • 2. insinuate one's way into: "you wormed your way into their lives"
   • ▪ obtain information from (someone) by cunning persistence: "I did manage to worm a few details out of him"
   • 3. treat (an animal) with a preparation designed to expel parasitic worms: "I wormed her over a course of three weeks"
   • 4. make (a rope) smooth by winding thread between the strands. archaic

   Word Origin Old Englishwyrm (noun), of Germanic origin; related to Latin vermis ‘worm’ and Greek rhomox ‘woodworm’.

   Derivatives

   • 1. wormlike adjective

   Scrabble Points: 9

   • W

     4

   • O

     1

   • R

     1

   • M

     3

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