Word.ws English Dictionary

chewing louse

chewing louse noun: any true louse that is not a sucking louse; a mallophagan.

chewing louse: any true louse that is not a sucking louse; a mallophagan
Image: Alan R Walker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chewing louse (plural chewing lice)

  1. Any true louse that is not a sucking louse; a mallophagan.
    • Many of the chewing lice are highly host specific, but a few may occur on a variety of not more than a half dozen related host species. They feed on skin (epidermal cells), hair, feathers, body oils and secretions, dried blood (wounds), and even other ectoparasites, such as mites. Chewing lice are...1996, Gary A. Dunn, Insects of the Great Lakes Region, page 105
    • There are cases where more than one species of chewing louse may infest the same host species and the lice may prefer living on specific parts of the host's body.2003, William S. Romoser, “Chapter 3: Introduction to ArthropodsSystematis, Behavior and Ecology”, in B.F. Eldridge, J.D. Edman, editors, Medical Entomology, page 60
    Synonyms:
    bird louse, biting louse

Synonyms of chewing louse

  • bird louse
  • biting louse

Forms of chewing louse

pluralchewing lice

Questions about chewing louse

What does chewing louse mean?
Chewing louse means any true louse that is not a sucking louse; a mallophagan.
What part of speech is chewing louse?
Chewing louse is a noun.
What is the plural of chewing louse?
The plural of chewing louse is chewing lice.

Words near chewing louse in the dictionary

  1. chewing balls
  2. chewing gum
  3. chewing gumless
  4. chewing gums
  5. chewing lice
  6. chewing louse
  7. chewing off
  8. chewing on
  9. chewing on one's nails
  10. chewing out
  11. chewing over

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chewing louse (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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