wheal-worms
wheal-worms is the plural of wheal-worm.
Meaning of wheal-worm
Noun
wheal-worm (plural wheal-worms)
- Any of various insects or arachnids the bites of which produce raised sores.
- It may be ſome will think it impoſſible for theſe Wheal-worms to breed between the eyes; but we ſee it is ſo, and we finde it was done ſo formerly1658, Edward Topsell, The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, London: E. Cotes for G. Sawbridge, XXIV Of little Lice called Syrones, Acari, and Tineæ, or Hand-worms, or Mites in living...
- A harvest mite, Trombicula sp.
- wheal-worm, n 1. The itch-mite acarus scabiei 2. The acarine Leptus autumnalis, or some similar harvest-bug: so named from the wheals or pimples left by its bite. See cut under harvest-mite.1895, William Dwight Whitney with Benjamin Eli Smith, The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, volume 8, New York: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 6888
- Synonyms:
- harvest mite, chigger, red bug
- A mite of species Acarus autumnalis, synonym of Neotrombicula autumnalis
- ACARUS AUTUMNALIS. Harvest-bug. Mower's Mite. Wheal-worm. Rouget. The acarus autumnalis is scarcely larger than the acarus scabiei1865, Sir Erasmus Wilson, “Malis, or cutaneous vermination”, in On Diseases of the Skin, Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 277
- Synonyms:
- harvest bug, scarlet mite
Questions about wheal-worms
- What is wheal-worms the plural of?
- Wheal-worms is the plural of wheal-worm.
Words near wheal-worms in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wheal-worms (page history and authors); wheal-worm (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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