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Worm   /wərm/   Listen
Worm

noun
1.
Any of numerous relatively small elongated soft-bodied animals especially of the phyla Annelida and Chaetognatha and Nematoda and Nemertea and Platyhelminthes; also many insect larvae.
2.
A person who has a nasty or unethical character undeserving of respect.  Synonyms: dirt ball, insect, louse.
3.
A software program capable of reproducing itself that can spread from one computer to the next over a network.
4.
Screw thread on a gear with the teeth of a worm wheel or rack.



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"Worm" Quotes from Famous Books



... a town of only 2,000 souls, supported no fewer than three houses which were devoted to a particular and unspeakable vice [69] which is said to be common in the East. Sir Charles, whose custom it was to worm out the truth respecting anything and everything, at once looked round for someone willing to make enquiries and to report upon the subject. Burton being then the only British officer who could speak Sindi, the choice naturally fell upon him, and he undertook the task, only, however, on the express ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... long winters nine I’ve hid my care within my breast; A worm gnaws sore my bosom’s core, Good night, my Lord! I ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... must remember she was the first princess of the blood royal—would supersede even her love of enjoyment, and the girl went down and the princess came up. Besides, she half feared that Brandon was amusing himself at her expense, and that, in fact, this was a new sort of masculine worm. Really, she sometimes doubted if it were a worm at all, and did not know what to expect, nor what she ought ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... and the worm turned. He sat down in the most comfortable easy-chair, and addressed ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to me so?" said Halbert Glendinning; "or is there any pastime in grovelling on the ground there like a gigantic kail-worm?—Get out of thy painted case, or, by my knighthood, I will treat you like the beast and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... of remark that in the case of the A. H. Smith Burns forgeries, suspicion was first excited by a simple but significant matter. The paper contained several worm holes. These had been carefully avoided by the writer, he knowing that if his pen touched them the result would be a spluttering and spreading of ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... that, on the whole, organisation advances. Nevertheless a very simple form fitted for very simple conditions of life might remain for indefinite ages unaltered or unimproved; for what would it profit an infusorial animalcule, for instance, or an intestinal worm, to become highly organised? Members of a high group might even become, and this apparently has often occurred, fitted for simpler conditions of life; and in this case natural selection would tend to simplify or degrade the organisation, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... incomparably better and more surely directed to the good of mankind than in any other; that the courage of such a people is the aptest tinder to noble fire; that the genius of such a soil is that wherein the roots of good literature are least worm-eaten with pedantism, and where their fruits have ever come to the greatest maturity and highest relish, conceived such a loathing of their ambition and tyranny, who, usurping the liberty of their native countries, become slaves ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... fish in the pool did not seem to care for Bunny's rag bait. Perhaps they knew it was only a piece of cloth, and not a nice worm, or piece of meat, such as they would like to eat. Anyhow, they just swam ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope

... with wide open eyes, in the chill morning light. Suddenly a rending, bursting noise was heard in the ceiling. The crack widened into a chasm, and then, with a heavy thud, down fell a confused mass of old bricks, crumbling mortar, and rotten, worm-eaten wood full on the mattress he had just relinquished, scattering pulverised rubble in all directions, and covering the bed with a layer of horrible dust ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... water, with masts and spars pointing every way. After having rounded the line of mines and the Brindisi, an Italian vessel that had struck a mine some days before, we made the port. Ten houses and a wretched wharf on worm-eaten piling at the end of a funnel of mountains with terrible rocks is all there ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... of his shirt bosom and go racing around his white vest. Pa tried to look pious, and resigned, but he couldn't keep his legs still, and he sweat mor'n a pail full. When the minister preached about "the worm that never dieth," Pa reached into his vest and scratched his ribs, and he looked as though he would give ten dollars if the minister would get through. Ma she looked at Pa as though she would bite his head off, but Pa he just squirmed, and acted as though his soul ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... form, Untouched by worm, Lies at this day Where good men pray, And nails and hair Grow fresh and fair; His cheek is red, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... dear Chamisso, to your criticism, and not seek to elude it. I have long visited myself with the heaviest judgment, for I have fed the devouring worm in my heart. This terrible moment of my existence is everlastingly present to my soul; and I can contemplate it only in a doubting glance, with humility and contrition. My friend, he who carelessly takes a step out of the straight path, is imperceptibly impelled into another course, in which he ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso

... (provisionally taken as the larva of F. cervina) is a small white worm, found swimming in the aqueous fluid in the anterior chamber. It may be apparently harmless for a long time, but will eventually induce keratitis with ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... dried and wrinkled scholars who come here to pilfer innocently from antiquity. Among these musty memorial shelves, if anywhere, it would seem that the dusty padding feet of the lost digamma might be heard. In this room, perhaps, Christian Mentzelius was at work when he heard the book-worm flap its wings. ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... a shamed and chastened young man who disappeared into his cabin, amid hearty congratulations, to change into dry garments. In the face of so much honest relief and thankfulness, he felt a very worm for his deceit and trickery. It had been a mean game—a dirty trick he had played everybody, and Kitty in particular; which might easily have cost him his life. Truly, he had come to the conclusion that he was not fit to aspire to any nice girl. Kitty ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... which the angel holds the dragon with his feet, looking exactly like a worm trodden on by the foot of a child, is exquisitely plaintive and interesting. Indeed these touches of nature abound in the works of the old masters, and I saw several fruit-pieces that I could have eaten. One really gets an appetite by looking at ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... never hit a man, this handful of sailors have been the saving of Ladysmith. You don't know, till you have tried it, what a worm you feel when the enemy is plugging shell into you and you can't possibly plug back. Even though they spared their shell, it made all the world of difference to know that the sailors could reach the big guns if they ever became unbearable. ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... took the other pole out of the bank, put on a fresh wriggling worm, and moved a little farther down the creek where there ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... damasks, &c.; maize, or Indian corn; musical instruments; mustard-flower; paper, painted or stained paper, &c.; pencils, lead and slate; perfumery; perry; pewter; pomatum; pots of stone; puddings and sausages; rice; sago; seeds, garden, &c.; silk (manufactures of), &c.; silk-worm gut; skins (articles manufactured of); soap, hard and soft; spa-ware; spirits, viz., brandy, geneva, and other foreign spirits, &c.; steel manufactures; tallow; tapioca; tin; tobacco; tongues; turnery; twine; varnish; wafers; washing-balls; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... countenance, and spoke plainly in her eyes. Upon the lips, what a guileless innocence and softness!—in the kind, frank eyes, what all-embracing love for God's creatures everywhere! She would not tread upon a worm; and I recollect to this day, what an agony of tears she fell into upon one occasion, when some boys killed the young of an oriole, and the poor bird sat singing its soul away for grief ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... teach, for I loved children. But if anything excited a suspicion of my pupils, and putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses, that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my button-hole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... had been constructed was Spanish chestnut, a timber which grew luxuriantly in the forests of England, and resembled English oak. It was largely used by the monks in the building of their refectories, as no worm or moth would go near it and no spider's web was ever woven there, the wood being poisonous to insects. It is lighter in colour than oak, and, seeing the beams so clean-looking, with the appearance of having been erected in modern times, it is difficult for the visitor to realise that they ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... now know "where we are at," and can take our course accordingly. It has for a number of years been known to all but a few back-number physicians—survivals from an exhausted regime—that all disease is caused by bacilli, which worm themselves into the organs that secrete health and enjoin them from the performance of that rite. The medical conservatives mentioned attempt to whittle away the value and significances of this theory by affirming its inadequacy ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... excommunicated thyself. In thine own self-will, thou hast set thyself to try thy strength against God and his whole universe. Dost thou fancy that he needs to interfere with the working of that universe, to punish such a worm as thee? No more than the great mill engine need stop, and the overseer of it interfere with the machinery, if the drunken or careless workman should entangle himself among the wheels. The wheels move ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... no carpets or hangings to invite destruction. Even the mattresses are often but plaited thongs of leather, covered with strong linen, and stretched until they are hard as wood. All Mary Fawcett's furniture was of mahogany, the only wood impervious to the boring of the West Indian worm. This tiny house on the mountain needed but a day's work to clean it, and another to transform it into an arbour of the forest. The walls of the rooms were covered with ferns, orchids, and croton leaves. Gold and silver candelabra had been carried ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... worms. All cherries contain worms. Once I made a very interesting experiment with a colleague of mine at the university. We bit into four pounds of the best cherries and did not find one specimen without a worm. But what would you? As I remarked to him afterwards—dear friend, it amounts to this: if one wishes to satisfy the desires of nature one must be strong enough to ignore the facts of nature... The ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... himself was also on board, locked in his own cabin. Elma must have overheard some conversation between the Baron and one of the others, for she was in great fear the whole time lest they might injure you. Yet it seemed, after all, as though their idea was the same as always, to worm themselves into your confidence. The instant, however, you went ashore, Chater, Woodroffe—whom you called Hornby—and Mackintosh, the captain—who, by the way, was an old ticket-of-leave man—went ashore, and, of course, broke into the Consulate. Then, as soon as they returned, Elma came to ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... as fine and human a cook as I ever wish to meet in her native lair. Miss MARGARET FRASER, a most attractive figure, was a model for any housemaid on whose damask cheek the concealment of an unrequited passion for her master feeds like a worm i' th' bud. Altogether a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... rest of a purple; his tail is white, intermixed with red, and his eyes sparkling like stars. When he is old, and finds his end approaching, he builds a nest with wood and aromatic spices, and then dies. Of his bones and marrow, a worm is produced, out of which another Phoenix is formed. His first care is to solemnize his parent's obsequies, for which purpose he makes up a ball in the shape of an egg, with abundance of perfumes of myrrh, as heavy as he can carry, which he often essays beforehand; then ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... worm," he murmured to himself, complacently. "No, I can lay my hand upon my heart and say, I ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... nor to-morrow, nor the day after? And I the daughter of the Undying, on whom the days shall grow and grow as the grains of sand which the wind heaps up above the sea-beach. And life shall grow huger and more hideous round about the lonely one, like the ling-worm laid upon the gold, that waxeth thereby, till it lies all around about the house of the queen entrapped, the moveless unending ring of the ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... as I was straying out, and thinking of "O'er the hills and far away," I spun the following stanza for it; but whether my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store, like the precious thread of the silk-worm, or brushed to the devil, like the vile manufacture of the spider, I leave, my dear Sir, to your usual candid criticism. I was pleased with several lines in it at first, but I own that now it appears rather a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... crabs which swarm in the weed are of exactly the same shade of yellow as the weed, and have white markings upon their bodies to represent the patches of Membranipora. The small fish, Antennarius, is in the same way weed-colour with white spots. Even a Planarian worm, which lives in the weed, is similarly yellow-coloured, and also a mollusc, Scyllaea pelagica." The same writer tells us that "a number of little crabs found clinging to the floats of the blue-shelled ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... had a heavy coating of grease upon its panes, which dispensed with the necessity of curtains. The whitewashed walls presented to the eye fuliginous tones, due to the wood and peat burned by the pauper in his stove. On the fireplace were a broken water-pitcher, two bottles, and a cracked plate. A worm-eaten chest of drawers contained his linen and decent clothes. The rest of the furniture consisted of a night-table of the commonest description, another table, worth about forty sous, and two kitchen chairs with the straw ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... manners by noon; but so far from clearing off at noon, the storm increased in violence, and as night set in, the wind whistled in a spiteful falsetto key, and the rain lashed the old tavern as if it were a balky horse that refused to move on. The windows rattled in the worm-eaten frames, and the doors of remote rooms, where nobody ever went, slammed to in the maddest way. Now and then the tornado, sweeping down the side of Mount Agamenticus, bowled across the open country, and struck the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... that stands So like a man of sin, Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad To feel the Worm within— For all that gesture, so intense, It makes no ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... This worm, established upon the fence opposite the conservatory windows, and in direct view from the table in the dining-room, shrieked the accursed request at short intervals throughout the luncheon hour. The humour of ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... to see the editor; for somehow newspaper reporting seemed more congenial to the vivid New York climate than singing in a church choir, and the hugeness of the To-day and To-morrow building turned her again into a worm. It did not so much scrape the sky as soar into it, and when she timidly murmured the words "editorial offices" she was shot up to the top in an elevator as in ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... I wished to worm her secrets out of your daughter, for it is evident that she has some secrets! And you come interrupting us, while I am working in your service—for Pauline is not my daughter; you arrive, as if you were charging a hostile ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac

... Ollie's hand. Together with parental encouragement and her own vain dreams, she had not found it hard to say the word that made her his wife. But the gay feathers had fallen from him very shortly after their wedding day, revealing the worm which they had hidden; the bright colors of his courtship parade had faded like the fustian decorations of a carnival in ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... there at fault, we must never forget the existence of the history. Some of the worst errors of biologists are due to their having forgotten that in the lower stages the germs of the higher must be present, even though invisible to any microscope. Our study of the worm is inadequate and likely to mislead us, unless we remember that a worm was the ancestor of man. And a biologist who can tell us nothing about man is ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... that this Greenland shark is not really blind, though the sailors think so because it shows no fear at the sight of man. The pupil of the eye is emerald green; the rest of it is blue, with a white worm-shaped substance on the outside. This one was upwards of ten feet in length, and in form like a dog-fish. It is a great foe to the whale, biting and annoying him even when alive; and by means of its peculiarly-shaped mouth ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... my lord," replied Viola. "She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat like Patience on a monument, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... explained that his misfortune in laming the horse and the fog combined had separated him from the revenue posse just from a secluded cove, where his men had discovered and raided an illicit distillery in a cavern, cutting the copper still and worm to bits, demolishing the furnace and fermenters, the flake-stand and thumper, destroying considerable store of mash and beer and singlings, and seizing and making off with a barrel of the completed product. A fine and successful adventure it might have seemed, but there were ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... understand it. Perhaps if he had known that these Bulgarians had, for many years, suffered horrible oppression and contemptuous treatment from the Turks under whose misrule they lay, he might have felt less surprise, though he might not have justified the act of revenge. If it be true that the worm turns on the foot that crushes it, surely it is no matter of wonder that human beings, who have long been debased, defrauded, and demoralised, should turn and bite somewhat savagely ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... the glories of the Himalaya. People had criticised the Duke's financial career in England. Why had he sold that snuffbox that Marie Therese gave to his ancestor when—well, you know when? Why had he converted those worm-eaten manuscripts, whereon were traced many valuable things in a variety of ancient tongues, into coin of the realm? And why had he turned his Irish estates into pounds, into shillings, yea, and into pence. Pence—just think of it! He had sold his ancestral lands for pence; that ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... insulted him. What worm was in the head of Moignon (the Paris music-hall agent) that he should send him such a monstrosity? He wasn't, nom de Dieu, carrying about freaks at a fair. He wanted a comedian and not a giant. No wonder the Cirque ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... men with the necessaries of life. And here we cannot but express our admiration, that the minutest agents are subservient to the purposes of the Almighty Creator. The coral is known to be the fabric of a little worm, which enlarges its house, in proportion as its own bulk increases. This little creature, which has scarce sensation enough to distinguish it from a plant, builds up a rocky structure from the bottom of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... some boy. He'd already doctored himself with hemostatics and local anaesthetics but, from the hips down, he was dead as salt pork, and his visceral reflexes must have been reacting like a worm cut with a hoe. Yet somehow, he doctored the two others and got ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker

... commodities of Persia are raw silks, of which it yields, according to the king's books, 7700 batmans yearly. Rhubarb grows in Chorassan, where also worm-seed grows. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... poetry and good literature. "One of our keenest pleasures," writes one of the family, "was to go in a body to the old book-shops, and on Sunday morning to the 'Thieves Market', to rummage for treasures; and many were the Elzevirs and worm-eaten, vellum-bound volumes from the old convent libraries that fell into our hands. At that time we issued a home magazine called 'The Prophet', in honour of a large painting that we had acquired and chose to consider as the patron ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... snake-like movement, could hear no sound. The guard did not move his head, and the other remained motionless, his face bent almost to his knees. Down below the horses stomped restlessly, and switched their tails. Watching each motion like a hawk, I saw Tom dip over the crest, and worm his way down behind the rock. Then he disappeared, until, as he cautiously arose to his feet, his head and shoulders emerged shadowy just beyond. Realizing he was ready, I got to my knees, gripping a pistol butt. Without a warning sound the Dragoon leaped, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... commonwealth attorney. The truth is, he was still smarting under the severe reproaches of M. Daubigeon, and he thought he would enjoy his revenge now. He found the old book-worm, as usual, among his beloved books, and in worse humor than ever. He ignored it, handed him a number of papers to sign; and when his business was over, and while he was carefully replacing the documents in his bag with his monogram on the outside, he added ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... human nature didn't desire a sense of security; but, as it is, when I am artificially set up, I find that all I can do is to look at my own feet, and tremble lest I fall. Modern literature stimulates; it doesn't nourish. It makes you feel like a giant for a moment, but leaves you crushed like a worm, and without faith, without love, without hope. It excites you pleasurably, and when you see life through its medium you never suspect that the vision is distorted. It makes you think the Iconoclast the greatest hero, and causes you to feel that you share his ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... charm of the social shell By the touch of the sorrowful mood; And already the worm, in her cell, Is preparing the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... of several species of insects. These insects resemble strongly the ordinary caterpillars. At a certain period of its existence the silkworm gives off a secretion of jelly-like substance. This hardens on exposure to the air as the worm forces it out and winds it about ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... with the tasteful white cottages surrounded by flower-gardens and wreathed with vines, or the elegant mansions of stone and slate, that form the homes of foreign residents; natives in filthy garb, or no garb at all, prowl about the dwellings or worm their devious way among the costly equipages of Europeans; orchards and vineyards are planted under the very shadow of forests where roam in all their savage freedom herds of wild cattle and their wilder masters; and out from the rocks and boulders of the most rugged spots rise clusters of the graceful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... from the Garden south by east along the endless coast that no strait broke. At first fair weather ran with us. But the Margarita was so lame! And all our other ships wrenched and worm-pierced. And the Admiral was growing old before our eyes. Not his mind or his soul ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... another look at "Major Piff," who bent his terrible, scornful gaze upon him, making poor Tom feel like an insignificant worm. But the imperious Prussian's stare netted him not half so much in the matter of valuable data as Tom derived from his rather timid scrutiny. Yet he would almost have preferred to face the muzzle of a field-piece rather than wither ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... other physicians of the same name. Galen quotes a book by Soranus on pharmacy, and Caelius Aurelianus one on fevers. He is also quoted by Tertullian, and by Paulus AEgineta, who writes that Soranus was one of the first Greek physicians to describe the guinea-worm. Soranus, in the opinion of St. Augustine, was Medicinae auctor nobilissimus. He was far removed from the prejudices and superstitions of his time, as is shown by his denunciation of ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... Ritta One had that job. Nuss (nurse) the chillun. Chillun house. One woman nuss (nurse) all the chillun while they ma in the field—rice field. All size chillun. Git the gipsy (gypsum) weed. Beat 'em up for worm. Give 'em when the moon change. Take a bucket and follow dem. And tell the Doctor how much a worm that one make and that one and count dem (them). When ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... stop: that the antique and inadequate supports would all give way, one bringing down the other in succession until we were buried. Would the forces of equilibrium establish themselves through the successive slight resistances of these rotted, worm-eaten old timbers before the constricted space in which we crouched should be ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... than a palace. In this upper room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here, in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... broad humanitarianism—beneficence to the lower grades of life. When love transcends the bounds of the human family it does not rise up toward God, it descends toward the lower orders of the animal world. "Show pity toward everything that exists," is its motto, and the insect and the worm hold a larger relative place in the Buddhist than in the Christian view. The question "Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?" might be doubtful in the Buddhist estimate, for the teacher himself, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... nest, which is a marvel of fitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem,—the body of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the down of some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping with the branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together by threads as fine and grail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks and musical turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of him as clean and handsome a nest as the king-bird's, whose ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... silhouette the gently-murmuring pines against the canyon wall. The air was chill and faintly scented by the bursting wild-cherry blossoms that grew in great profusion along the stream. Here and there, in a moist crevice, a glow-worm shed forth its greenish-yellow glow, to let you know it was night time and summer. Far away in the distance Phantom Falls was tumbling and splashing over a great ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... that to call ourselves "obedient and humble servants" of others, has passed into one of the commonest forms of address, many prayers are made up of similar expressions of humility and contrition, the votary calling himself a "miserable sinner" and a "vile worm," and on the other hand magnifying his Lord as greater than all other gods, mighty and helpful to those who assiduously ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... precious memories often grow From out the darkest voids of woe; As fissures by the sea-worm drilled In Eastern shells, with pearls ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey

... hopes of emulating them, since he understood that Archbishop as was my Lord of York, there was a tilt-yard at York House. Ambrose, equally full of his new feelings, essayed to make his brother a sharer in them, but Stephen entirely failed to understand more than that his book-worm brother had heard something that delighted him in his own line of scholarship, from which Stephen had happily escaped ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... grinders which might have defied a shark. "Monsieur, (said the doctor, inspecting his gums), it is but too true. The disorders attending these small but inestimable members, the teeth, are invariably to be traced to a species of worm, and this the most obstinate, as well as the most fatal species in the vermicular tribe, which contrives to conceal itself at the root of the affected member. Gentlemen, we have all our respective antipathies; ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... simple, strong, opaque mandibles, and a large unarticulated chitinous coat, were present. Lumps of black organic matter, possibly of a vegetable nature, were enclosed in two other leaves; but in one of these there was also a small worm much decayed. But the nature of partially digested and decayed bodies, which have been pressed flat, long dried, and then soaked in water, cannot be recognised easily. All the leaves contained unicellular and other Algae, still of a greenish ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... most common insects attacking the wood of living trees are the oak timber worm, the chestnut timber worm, carpenter worms, ambrosia beetles, the locust borer, turpentine beetles and turpentine borers, and the white ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... instinctively and, by every presumption, so prevailingly ready for? Berridge would have given six months' "royalties" for even an hour of his looser dormant consciousness—since one was oneself, after all, no worm, but an heir of all the ages too—and yet without being able to supply chapter and verse for the felt, the huge difference. His Seigneurie was tall and straight, but so, thank goodness, was the author of "The Heart of Gold," who had no such vulgar ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... offered to the Lord—a lamb full of blemish? If the church were weak, and it were really beyond her ability to do more than she does at present, then God would accomplish great victories by the feeble means. He can save by few as well as by many. He would make the "worm Jacob to thresh mountains." But since God has blessed the American church with numbers, and with great and peculiar advantages, he requires of her efforts that accord with her ability. The poor widow's mites accomplish much; but the wealthy man's mites, or the wealthy ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... my art was to me, the great primal note by which I had revealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world, the great passion of my life, the love to which all other loves were as marsh water to red wine, or the glow worm of the marsh to the magic mirror of the moon.... Don't you understand now that your lack of imagination was the one really fatal defect of your character? What you had to do was quite simple, and quite clear before ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... stealthily as the fear returned and grew, I reached the door, pushed it open, and looked out on the landing. But for a worm-eaten trunk and a line of old suits dangling from pegs around the wall, it was bare. The little light filtered through a cracked and discoloured window high up in the slope of the roof. The ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mere brute masses of animal organization,—barnacles on a dead universe; looking into the dull grave with no hope beyond it; earth gazing into earth, and saying to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... reached the ground, and then truly Thor deceived the Midgard serpent no less than Utgard-Loki deceived Thor when he gave him the serpent to lift in his hand. The Midgard serpent gaped wide at the bait, and the hook stuck fast in his mouth. When the worm felt this he tugged at the hook so that Thor's hands were dashed against the side of the boat. Then Thor got angry, and, collecting to himself all his divine strength, he pulled so hard that his feet went through the bottom of the boat and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... blazing with swift rage. But Nicholas, with a single glance from his calm, mocking, but deeply penetrating eyes, once more arrested him. "This boy trusts you so, Anton, believes so utterly in your good faith, the impartial judgment of you and your worm, Zaremba, that even you, whose very blood is green, would be moved if you could hear him.—However—where's the manuscript ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... and not to function or external conditions. One case of this kind is that of the limbs of Snakes, where, if we except the vestiges of hind limbs in the Pythons, there is no trace of limbs either in the embryo or after hatching. There are several similar cases among Reptiles and Amphibia. The Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis) is limbless, and so are the members of the sub-class Apoda among the Amphibia. In these also rudiments of limbs are entirely absent in the embryos or larval stages. Considering the ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... train to one of the busy towns. There scores upon scores of soil-smeared workmen swarmed over all the landscape with long paper-wrapped rolls of Panamanian silver in their hands, while flashily dressed touts and crooks of both sexes drifted out from Panama with every train to worm their insidious way into wherever the scent of coin promised another month free from labor. To add to those crowded times the chief dissipation of the West Indian during the few days following pay-day that his earnings last is to ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... of propitiatory sacrifice. We read in the li chao chuan,[6] or Divine Panorama, that "every living being, no matter whether it be a man or an animal, a bird or a quadruped, a gnat or a midge, a worm or an insect, having legs or not, few or many, all ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... mean with mine," growled the other. "My name is an historical one too—but that is not in question.—Do you know your crest ought to be a hairy worm?" ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... intention of hastening to Dr. McPherson's for Mary, but this he found to be impossible because of the overcrowded condition of the streets. The sports of the day had already begun. From curb to curb the way was jammed with a dense mass of men, women, and children, through whom he had to worm his way. After ten feet of this, he heard his name called, and looking up, caught sight of Mary herself, perched on a dry-goods box, frantically waving a handkerchief in ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... over again by experts during the past forty or fifty years, and from the first they pronounced it a hopeless case, so that it was never restored. The interior, right down to the time of demolition, was like that of most country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm-eaten pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if in their own houses or castles. On account of the damp we were haunted by toads. You smile, sir, but it was no smiling matter for me during my first year as vicar, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... described every part of his dress, from the bonnet downwards, detailing every process and stage of the manufacture. The bonnet, which was put on his head for this purpose, the coat, the silk-handkerchief, the cotton vest, were all traced respectively from the sheep, the egg of the silk-worm, and the cotton-pod. The buttons, which were of brass, were stated to be a composition of copper and zinc, which were separately and scientifically described, with the reasons assigned, (as good as could be given,) ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... you're as old as I am, young man, you'll experience it too. There are few perfectly sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few swords without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth year that has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others torture with sharp fangs, and mine—mine.—Do you want to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... half as indulgent to Olivia as you are to me: indeed you are prejudiced against her; and because you see some faults, you think her whole character vicious. But would you cut down a fine tree because a leaf is withered, or because the canker-worm has eaten into the bud? Even if a main branch were decayed, are there not remedies which, skilfully applied, can save the tree from destruction, and perhaps restore it ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... which are the food of the bass, they must be fed on fresh liver cut in threads like an angle worm to tempt the fish. Even then the liver diet must be varied by feeding minnows from September until the bass goes into winter quarters. In no other way can fertile eggs be assured for the spring hatching. Minnows left in the pond all winter will breed ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the earth." ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... could make men know The thing I am, the thing from which I grow? Thou dead King, Polybus, thou city wall Of Corinth, thou old castle I did call My father's, what a life did ye begin, What splendour rotted by the worm within, When ye bred me! O Crossing of the Roads, O secret glen and dusk of crowding woods, O narrow footpath creeping to the brink Where meet the Three! I gave you blood to drink. Do ye remember? 'Twas my life-blood, hot From mine own father's heart. Have ye forgot ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... exiles, who so long wander over the world, Where will ye find a resting place for your weary steps? The wild dove has its nest, and the worm a clod of earth, Each man a country, but ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... friendship in this condition, when my first impression is, "My good sir, I strongly suspect that you were up my pear-tree last night?" It is a dreadful state of mind. The core is black; the death-stricken fruit drops on the bough, and a great worm is within—fattening, and feasting, and wriggling! WHO stole the pears? I say. Is it you, brother? Is it you, madam? Come! are you ready to answer—respondere parati et cantare ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... enmity of the Count de Lille vanishes like a glow-worm in the darkness. I want tangible proofs by which I can arrest my enemies. Can you ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... self too," he returned eagerly. He would have no disloyalty done to the queen of his boyish dreams: what worm soever was at its root, his royal pomegranate flower should be always set fair in the sun ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... identify a glow-worm and correct the ascription of its light to any fellow's cigar-end thrown away. She made the best figure that was compatible with being indubitably passee when she went down on one knee in connection with this identification. Mr. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... 1775, a hundred of the young men of the village were drilled every night. They had on their long smock-frocks, broad-brimmed black hats, and leggings. Their own firelocks were on their shoulders, twenty-three cartridges in their cartouches, the worm, the priming-wire, and twelve flints in their pockets. These were the bold minute-men of New Jersey, and Frederick Frelinghuysen was their gallant Dutch captain, who stood ready to march, in case ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... Blore had been known to remark that he could not fathom what Aggie meant by that expression, as it certainly was not appropriate to the domestic circle at The Towers, consisting, as it did, of one rheumatic Anglo-Indian worm, and one able-bodied blackbird. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... woe would be least of all, I think," Mrs. Temperley observed. "What ogre is going to ill-treat them? And since few of us know how to bring up so much as an earth-worm reasonably, I can't see that it matters so very much which particular woman looks after the children. Any ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... dream no more of a fadeless flower With never a cankering blight'— For the queenliest rose in thy garden bed, The pride of the morn, ere the noon is fled, With the worm at its heart, withers cold and dead In ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... the Volscian aids, And Metius with the long fair curls, The love of Anxur's maids, And the white head of Vulso, The great Arician seer, And Nepos of Laurentum The hunter of the deer; And in the back false Sextus Felt the good Roman steel, And wriggling in the dust he died, Like a worm beneath the wheel: And fliers and pursuers Were mingled in a mass; And far away the battle Went roaring through ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... bestowing grace (Arul). "With mother love he came in grace and made me his"; "O thou who art to thy true servants true"; "To thee, O Father, may I attain, may I yet dwell with thee." Sometimes[535] the poet feels that his sins have shut him off from communion with God. He lies "like a worm in the midst of ants, gnawed by the senses and troubled sore" ejaculating in utter misery "Thou hast forsaken me." But more often he seems on the point of expressing a thought commoner in Christianity than in Indian religion, namely that the troubles of this life are only a ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... patches of mildew, and in some parts there were long greenish stains from roof to ground, like tear streaks on the crumbling plaster. Indoors there was a dank graveyard smell in the low corridors and narrow stair-cases. Floors and ceilings were equally worm-eaten and rotten. Broad flakes of plaster from the walls lay littered about in the passages. The wind, too, penetrated the building through many cracks and crannies, so that there was a constant sighing and soughing ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... be boiled; it can be baked in an oven hot enough to cook a turkey; it can be soaked in brine, lye, camphene, turpentine, or oil; it can be dipped into oil of vitriol, and still no harm done. To crown its merits, no rat, mouse, worm, or moth has ever shown the slightest inclination to make acquaintance with it. The office of a Review is not usually provided with the means of subjecting literature to such critical tests as lye, vitriol, boilers, and hot ovens. But we have seen enough elsewhere of the ordeals to which ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... sound of a little hammer against a tree. He ran into the wood, and there he saw a little bird knocking with its bill against the trunk of a tree, just as if it wanted some one to open the door! Soon he saw it draw out of the bark of the tree, a little worm, which hung upon the end of its tongue as if it had been a hook! His mother told him this little bird, was called a woodpecker, and this was the way it ...
— Happy Little Edward - And His Pleasant Ride and Rambles in the Country. • Unknown

... quaff'd like thee; I died, but earth my bones resign: Fill up—thou canst not injure me, The worm hath ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt



Words linked to "Worm" :   nemertine, annelid, disagreeable person, wrench, chaetognath, acanthocephalan, screw, malevolent program, nematode, platyhelminth, helminth, nemertean, unpleasant person, move, invertebrate, pogonophoran



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