worm

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a software program capable of reproducing itself that can spread from one computer to the next over a network

   worms take advantage of automatic file sending and receiving features found on many computers

2. 2
   verb

   to move in a twisting or contorted motion, especially when struggling

   I wormed my way out of my attacker's grasp.

3. 3
   noun

   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.[…]’

4. 4
   noun

   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 […]

5. 5
   noun

   Any creeping or crawling animal, such as a snake, snail, or caterpillar.

   1561, Geneva Bible, Acts 28:3-4, 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 Vengeance hathe not suffred to liue.

6. 6
   noun

   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.

7. 7
   noun

   A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent or any kind of dragon.

   In the Cross of Cong (A.D. 1123) the Celtic inter-laced patterns are found side by side with the "worm-dragon" ornament ..

8. 8
   noun

   A contemptible or devious being.

   Don't try to run away, you little worm!

Etymology

From Middle English worm, werm, wurm, wirm, from Old English wyrm (“worm, snake”), from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis, 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 Dutch worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Swedish orm (“snake”), Norwegian Nynorsk orm (“earthworm or snake”), Danish orm and Yiddish וואָרעם (vorem). Indo-European cognates include Latin…