Word.ws English Dictionary

hookworm

/ˈhʊkˌwɝm/

hookworm noun: any of various parasitic bloodsucking roundworms which cause disease, especially the species Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, having hooked mouthparts and entering their hosts by boring through the skin.

hookworm: any of various parasitic bloodsucking roundworms which cause disease, especially the species...
Image: Sonett72, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

hookworm (countable and uncountable, plural hookworms)

  1. (countable) Any of various parasitic bloodsucking roundworms which cause disease, especially the species Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, having hooked mouthparts and entering their hosts by boring through the skin.
    • A heavy infestation of more than 100 hookworms can suck up as much as 16 fluid ounces of blood a day. Since hookworm larvae can be transmitted through a mother's milk, infestations can kill infants.1996 October 6, William Hathaway, “PARASITE LINKS MEN IN DARING VENTURE”, in Hartford Courant, archived from the original on 28 Nov 2020
  2. (metonymically, uncountable) Infection with one of these parasites.
    • a case of hookworm

hookworm meaning in Tamil, Kannada and Tagalog

hookworm in Tamil

கொக்கிப்புழு

hookworm in Kannada

ಕೊಕ್ಕೆಹುಳು

hookworm in Tagalog

parasitic worm
tiwal

Synonyms of hookworm

Forms of hookworm

pluralhookworms

Origin of hookworm

From hook + worm.

Words formed from hookworm

Questions about hookworm

What does hookworm mean?
Hookworm means any of various parasitic bloodsucking roundworms which cause disease, especially the species Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, having hooked mouthparts and entering their hosts by boring through the skin.
What is hookworm in Tamil?
Hookworm in Tamil is கொக்கிப்புழு. See Hookworm meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hookworm?
Hookworm is a noun.
How do you pronounce hookworm?
Hookworm is pronounced /ˈhʊkˌwɝm/ (US).
What is the plural of hookworm?
The plural of hookworm is hookworms.

Words near hookworm in the dictionary

  1. hookups
  2. Hookway
  3. Hookways
  4. hookwise
  5. Hookwood
  6. hookworm
  7. hookworms
  8. hookwormy
  9. hooky
  10. Hooky Walker
  11. hooky-playing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hookworm (page history and authors); hookworm (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hookworm (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-hookworm.wav.

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