Word.ws English Dictionary

caterpiller

caterpiller is the obsolete spelling of caterpillar.

Meaning of caterpillar

Noun

caterpillar (plural caterpillars)

  1. The larva of a butterfly or moth; leafworm.
    • The bird just ate that green caterpillar.
  2. A vehicle with a caterpillar track; a crawler.
  3. A set of subtrees of a tree.
  4. (obsolete) A rapacious, extortionate person preying upon the community.
    • Bristow Castle, which they say is held / By Busbie, Bagot, and their Complices, / The Caterpillers of the Commonwealth, / Which I haue sworne to weed, and plucke away.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...

See all 5 meanings of caterpillar

Forms of caterpiller

pluralcaterpillers

Questions about caterpiller

What is caterpiller the obsolete spelling of?
Caterpiller is the obsolete spelling of caterpillar.

Words near caterpiller in the dictionary

  1. caterpillarizes
  2. caterpillarizing
  3. caterpillarlike
  4. caterpillars
  5. caterpillarweed
  6. caterpiller
  7. caterpillers
  8. caters
  9. caterwaul
  10. caterwauled
  11. caterwauler

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caterpiller (page history and authors); caterpillar (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “caterpiller.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caterpiller. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.