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woodworm

woodworm noun: any of many beetle larvae that bore into wood.

woodworm: any of many beetle larvae that bore into wood
Image: KaiMartin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

woodworm (countable and uncountable, plural woodworms)

  1. Any of many beetle larvae that bore into wood.
    • […] Chrisostome doth compaire enuie to the wood worm which though it doe breede in the tymber, yet it doth consume & waste the tymber, as enuie springing of the heart doth putrifie and vtterly eat vp the heart.1599, Simon Harward, “A Displaying of the wilfull deuises of wicked and vaine worldlings” in Three Sermons, London: Richard Johns
    • There was only one contretemps during the whole interview—the arrival of another visitor, in the shape (surely) the last of God’s creatures, a wood-worm of the most unnatural and hideous appearance, with one great striped horn stucking out of his nose like a boltsprit. If there are many wood-worms...1872, Robert Louis Stevenson, letter to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson dated July 29, 1872, in Sidney Colvin (editor), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, New York: Scribner, 1917, Volume I, p. 45
    1. (particularly) Anobium punctatum (common furniture beetle).
  2. A shipworm, a worm-like mollusk in the family Teredinidae that feeds on wood underwater in saltwater.

woodworm meaning in Tamil and Kannada

woodworm in Tamil

நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும் பூச்சிகளில், இது முக்கியமானதொரு இனமாகும்

woodworm in Kannada

ಕುಟ್ಟೆಹುೞು

Examples of woodworm in a sentence

  • New Alresford is constantly mispronounced, T-shaped, honeycombed with cellars, packed with antique shops, riddled with woodworm, surrounded by watercress.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 144:
  • It would have to be treated for woodworm, he said.1992, Colm Tóibín, chapter 2, in The Heather Blazing, Penguin, published 1994, page 25:

Synonyms of woodworm

Forms of woodworm

pluralwoodworms

Origin of woodworm

From wood + worm.

Words formed from woodworm

Questions about woodworm

What does woodworm mean?
Woodworm means any of many beetle larvae that bore into wood.
What is woodworm in Tamil?
Woodworm in Tamil is நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும் பூச்சிகளில், இது முக்கியமானதொரு இனமாகும். See Woodworm meaning in Tamil.
How do you use woodworm in a sentence?
New Alresford is constantly mispronounced, T-shaped, honeycombed with cellars, packed with antique shops, riddled with woodworm, surrounded by watercress.
What part of speech is woodworm?
Woodworm is a noun.
What is the plural of woodworm?
The plural of woodworm is woodworms.

Words near woodworm in the dictionary

  1. woodworker's lung
  2. woodworkers
  3. woodworking
  4. woodworkings
  5. woodworks
  6. woodworm
  7. woodwormed
  8. woodworms
  9. woodwormy
  10. Woodworth
  11. Woodworths

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: woodworm (page history and authors); woodworm (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); woodworm (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)-Flame, not lame-woodworm.wav.

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