worm

From Middle English worm, werm, wurm, wirm, from Old English wyrm (“snake, worm”), from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis, possibly from *wer- (“to turn”). Cognate with Dutch worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Danish orm, Norwegian orm. Indo-European cognates include Latin vermis (“worm”), Lithuanian var̃mas (“insect, midge”), Albanian rrime (“rainworm”), Ancient Greek ῥόμος (rhómos, “woodworm”). First computer usage by John Brunner in his 1975 book The Shockwave Rider.

Doublet of wyrm, which is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English.

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

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m

A worm

worm (plural worms)

1. A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘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.
3. (archaic) A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent.[1]
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, King James Version of the Bible, Psalms 22:6,

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

6. (computing) A self-replicating program that propagates through a network.
7. (cricket) A graphical representation of the total runs scored in an innings.
8. Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Moxon

     The threads of screws, when bigger than can be made in screw plates, are called worms.

   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. (obsolete) 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.

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 4,

     […] No, ’tis slander,

     Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue

     Outvenoms all the worms of Nile […]

   • 1867, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (translator), The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, Volume I, Inferno, 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. (figuratively) An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse.
    • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene 3,

      The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!

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

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) George Herbert

     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

5. To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means; often followed by out.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Jonathan Swift

     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).
   • (Can we date this quote?) Charles Dickens

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

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter XXII, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, 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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Scott

     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.

• wurm

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

• Rhymes: -ɔrm

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worm m (plural wormen, diminutive wormpje n)

1. worm

• aasworm
• haringworm
• hazelworm
• lintworm
• oorworm
• regenworm
• ringworm

• Afrikaans: wurm

• pier

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

From Old English wyrm, 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

• Scots: worm, wirm
• English: worm

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

Borrowed from English worm.

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈwoʁ.mi/

worm m (plural worms)

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