worm-eaten

Adjective

worm-eaten (comparative more worm-eaten, superlative most worm-eaten)

1. Of fruit or other food, eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside.
   • Once upon a time there was a lad, who went along a road cracking nuts. He happened to find one which was worm-eaten, and shortly afterwards he met the devil.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 36
2. (broadly, figuratively) Rotten or decrepit.
   • The wooden jetty on the East Pier had become worm-eaten and was demolished, but the Admiralty lent an old hulk to serve as a rough-and-ready packet facility.1960 May, K. A. Murray, “Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire”, in Railway Magazine, page 302