Word.ws English Dictionary

worm

/wɜːm//wɝm/

worm noun: a generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.

worm: a generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm
Image: Rubbish computer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

worm (plural worms)

  1. A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
    • ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
  2. More loosely, any of various tubular invertebrates resembling annelids but not closely related to them, such as velvet worms, acorn worms, flatworms, or roundworms. See Appendix:English worms.
    • Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung
      Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.
      A woman’s shape, now lank and cold and blue,
      The dwelling of the many-coloured worm,
      Hung there […]1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC...
  3. (archaic, poetic) Any creeping or crawling animal, such as a snake (cf. “dragon”; blindworm, slowworm, “legless lizard”), snail, or caterpillar.
    • A forlyued cok leiþ eiren in his laste elde... and ȝif any venemous worme sittiþ on broode þerevppon in þe canyculer dayes, þerof is igendrid... a cocatrice.a. 1398, John Trevisa, transl. Bartholomeus Anglicus as De Proprietatibus Rerum (MS BL Add. 27944), Vol. I, p. 628
    • And when Paul had gathered a nomber of stickes, & laid them on the fyre, there came a viper out of the heat, and leapt on his hand. Now when the Barbarians sawe the worme hang on his hand, they said among them selues This man surely is a murtherer, whome, thogh he hathe escaped the sea, yet...1561, Geneva Bible, Acts 28:3-4
    1. (archaic, broadly, informal, poetic) A maggot or any other insect larva with similar shape and behavior.
      • Those little wriggling worms are the larvae of flies who laid eggs here.
  4. (archaic, poetic) A dragon, today especially Germanic dragon, more often of the serpentine or wingless type, for example sea serpent, but also any kind of dragon.
    • a. 1398, John Trevisa, transl. Bartholomeus Anglicus as De Proprietatibus Rerum (MS BL Add. 27944), Vol. I, p. 628:
    • In the Cross of Cong (A.D. 1123) the Celtic inter-laced patterns are found side by side with the "worm-dragon" ornament ..1922, A. Walsh, Scandinavian Relations with Ireland during the Viking Period
    Synonyms:
    wyrm
    1. (archaic, poetic) Either a mythical "dragon" (especially wingless), a gigantic sea serpent, or a creature that resembles a Mongolian death worm.
  5. A contemptible or devious being.
    • Don't try to run away, you little worm!
    • But I am a worme, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 22:6
  6. A self-replicating program that propagates through a network by copying itself, differing from a virus which seeks to propagate by inserting its code into other executable files.
    • When Trevor opened his email, a worm spread to 100 people in his address book.
  7. A graphical representation of the total runs scored across a number of overs.
  8. Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
    • If the Worms of the Nut or Spindle be worn, the Spindle must be examin'd by the Smith1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick exercises
    1. A spiral instrument or screw, often like a double corkscrew, used for drawing balls from firearms.
    2. The spiral wire of a corkscrew.
    3. A muscular band in the tongue of some animals, such as dogs; the lytta.
    4. The condensing tube of a still, often curved and wound to save space.
    5. A short revolving screw whose threads drive, or are driven by, a worm wheel or rack by gearing into its teeth.
      • Holonyms: worm drive, worm and wheel
  9. (figuratively) An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse.
    • The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  10. A strip of linked tiles sharing parallel edges in a tiling.
  11. The lytta.
  12. (preceded by definite article) A dance, or dance move, in which the dancer lies on the floor and undulates the body horizontally thereby moving forwards.

Verb

worm (third-person singular simple present worms, present participle worming, simple past and past participle wormed)

  1. (transitive) To make (one's way) with a crawling motion.
    • We wormed our way through the underbrush.
    • I took a firm grip of Josella's hand, and we started to worm our way along as unobviously as possible.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 80
  2. (intransitive) To move with one's body dragging the ground.
    • Inch by inch I wormed along the secret passageway, flat to the ground, not once raising my head, hardly daring to pull a full breath[…].1919, William Joseph Long, How animals talk: and other pleasant studies of birds and beast
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To work one's way by artful or devious means.
    • When debates and fretting jealousy / Did worm and work within you more and more, / Your colour faded.[1633], George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis...
  4. (figuratively, transitive) To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate.
    • He wormed his way into the organization.
    • With “facts” generated by Wikipedia worming themselves into every corner of our digital lives, such as your Alexa speaker or iPhone, perhaps it’s the ubiquity of information that’s the problem – and something that should concern us all.2021 May 27, Andrew Orlowski, “You think the BBC is biased? Check out Wokepedia”, in The Telegraph
  5. (often) To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means.
    • They […]find themselves wormed out of all power.1731, Jonathan Swift, The Presbyterians Plea of Merit
  6. (figuratively, transitive) To drag out of, to get information that someone is reluctant or unwilling to give (through artful or devious means or by pleading or asking repeatedly).
    • They[…]wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 17, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC
    • He nodded. "Mum's the word, Mrs. Bunting! It'll all be in the last editions of the evening newspapers—it can't be kep' out. There'd be too much of a row if twas!"
      "Are you going off to that public-house now?" she asked.
      "I've got a awk'ard job—to try and worm something out of the barmaid."1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter XXII, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans...
  7. (transitive) To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving.
    • Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
    • Ropes[…]are generally wormed before they are served.1841, Benjamin J. Totten, Naval Text-Book
  8. (transitive) To deworm (an animal).
  9. (transitive) To cut the worm, or lytta, from under the tongue of (a dog, etc.) for the purpose of checking a disposition to gnaw, and formerly supposed to guard against canine madness.
    • The men[…] assisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown...
  10. (transitive) To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm.

Noun (2) capitalized: WORM

WORM (plural WORMs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of write once, read many.

Proper noun capitalized: Worm

Worm (plural Worms)

  1. A surname.

worm meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

worm in Hindi

animal
कीड़ा kīṛā, पोका pokā, किर्म kirm

worm in Tamil

animal
புழு puḻu

worm in Urdu

animal
کِیڑا kīṛā, پوکا pokā, کِرْم kirm

worm in Bengali

animal
কীট kiṭ
More languagesFewer languages
worm in Telugu
పురుగు purugu
worm in Malayalam
പുഴു puḻu
worm in Kannada
ಹುಳು huḷu
worm in Punjabi
ਸੁੰਡੀ suṇḍī
worm in Odia
କୃମି krumi
worm in Sanskrit
कृमि kṛmi
worm in Sinhala
පණු paṇu
worm in Pashto
چومجى čumjáy, چينجى činjáy
worm in Arabic
دُودَة dūda, دُود dūd, دود dūd, دودة dūda
worm in Malay
cacing
worm in Indonesian
cacing
worm in Persian
کِرْم kirm
worm in Thai
หนอน nɔ̌ɔn
worm in Vietnamese
giun, trùn
worm in Myanmar
တီကောင် tikaung, သန်ကောင် sankaung

Examples of worm in a sentence

  • Indeed the allusion to the more renowned worm killed by the Wælsing is sufficient indication that the poet selected a dragon of well-founded purpose[.]1936, J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, published 1976, page 9:
  • The after fifty years a foul worm, a dragon, took it upon itself to hold sway through the heavens at night.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 39:

All 40 example sentences with worm

Synonyms of worm

Forms of worm

Noun
pluralworms
pluralWORMs
alternative form (obsolete)worme
Verb
third-person singular presentworms
present participleworming
past participlewormed
pastwormed
Proper noun
pluralWorms

Plural of worm: worms

Origin of worm

From Middle English werm, wirm, worm, worme, wrim, wurm, wyrm, wyrme, from Old English weorm, wurm, wyrm, from Proto-West Germanic *wurmi, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (“worm; snake”), from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis (“worm; larva”), possibly from *wer- (“to turn”). Doublet of vermin and wyrm, the latter of which is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English. (computing): First computer usage by John Brunner in his 1975 book The Shockwave Rider. Cognates Germanic cognates include North Frisian wörem, wörm, Würem (“worm”), Saterland Frisian Wurm, Wúurm (“worm”), West Frisian wjirm (“worm”), Alemannic German Wüüre (“worm”), Cimbrian bórm (“worm”), burm (“snake”), Dutch worm, wurm (“worm”), German Gewürm (“vermin”), Wurm (“worm”), Low German Worm (“worm”), Luxembourgish Wuerm (“worm”), Mòcheno burm (“snake”), Vilamovian vūəm, wüm (“worm”), Yiddish וואָרעם (vorem, “worm”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Swedish orm (“worm”), Faroese and Icelandic ormur (“worm”), Norwegian Nynorsk orm (“worm”), yrme, yrmle (“female snake with offspring”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌼𐍃 (waurms, “snake”), Kildin Sami уррьм (urr’m, “gadfly larva”), Skolt Sami uʹrmm (“gadfly larva”). Indo-European cognates...

Borrowed from Danish and German Worm.

Words formed from worm

Phrases with worm

130 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with worm

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about worm

What does worm mean?
Worm means a generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
What is worm in Hindi?
Worm in Hindi is कीड़ा (kīṛā), पोका (pokā), किर्म (kirm). See Worm meaning in Hindi.
How do you use worm in a sentence?
Indeed the allusion to the more renowned worm killed by the Wælsing is sufficient indication that the poet selected a dragon of well-founded purpose[.]
What part of speech is worm?
Worm can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce worm?
Worm is pronounced /wɜːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of worm?
The plural of worm is worms.

Words near worm in the dictionary

  1. Worley
  2. Worleys
  3. Worli
  4. Worlingham
  5. Worlington
  6. worm
  7. worm and wheel
  8. worm ball
  9. worm balls
  10. worm bark
  11. worm burner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: worm (page history and authors); WORM (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-worm.wav, en-au-worm.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-worm.wav.

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