Word.ws English Dictionary

gloworm

gloworm is the obsolete form of glowworm.

Meaning of glowworm

Noun

glowworm (plural glowworms)

  1. The larva or wingless grub-like female of a beetle from the families Phengodidae or Lampyridae that gives out a green light from its abdomen.
    • The glowworm shows the matin to be near
      And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
      Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (Australia, New Zealand) A carnivorous gnat larva in the keroplatid genus Arachnocampa that spins threads to capture insects attracted by its glow.

Forms of gloworm

pluralgloworms

Questions about gloworm

What is gloworm the obsolete form of?
Gloworm is the obsolete form of glowworm.

Words near gloworm in the dictionary

  1. glowlights
  2. glown
  3. glown up
  4. glownigger
  5. glowniggers
  6. gloworm
  7. gloworms
  8. glowplug
  9. glowplugs
  10. glowpost
  11. glowposted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gloworm (page history and authors); glowworm (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: “gloworm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gloworm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.