death-watch beetle
death-watch beetle is the alternative form of deathwatch beetle.
Meaning of deathwatch beetle
Noun
deathwatch beetle (plural deathwatch beetles)
- Any of various beetles of the family Anobiidae, now usually included in family Ptinidae, especially Xestobium rufovillosum, that bore into wood and make a tapping sound.
- And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watch:
Because like a watch it always cries click;
Then woe to those in the house who are sick,1819, John Mason Good, Olinthus Gregory, Newton Bosworth, Pantologia. A New Cabinet Cyclopedia, page 38
- And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watch:
Forms of death-watch beetle
| plural | death-watch beetles |
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Questions about death-watch beetle
- What is death-watch beetle the alternative form of?
- Death-watch beetle is the alternative form of deathwatch beetle.
Words near death-watch beetle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: death-watch beetle (page history and authors); deathwatch beetle (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: “death-watch beetle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/death-watch_beetle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.