worm

Meanings

Noun

• A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm.
• More loosely, any of various tubular invertebrates resembling annelids but not closely related to them, such as velvet worms, acorn worms, flatworms, or roundworms.
• A type of wingless "dragon", especially a gigantic sea serpent.
• Either a mythical "dragon" (especially wingless), a gigantic sea serpent, or a creature that resembles a Mongolian death worm.
• A contemptible or devious being.
• A self-replicating program that propagates through a network.
• A graphical representation of the total runs scored in an innings.
• Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw.
• Any creeping or crawling animal, such as a snake, snail, or caterpillar.
• An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse.
• A strip of linked tiles sharing parallel edges in a tiling.
• The lytta.
• A dance, or dance move, in which the dancer lies on the floor and undulates the body horizontally thereby moving forwards.

Verb

• To make (one's way) with a crawling motion.
• To move with one's body dragging the ground.
• To work one's way by artful or devious means.
• To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate.
• To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means; often followed by out.
• 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).
• To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving.
• To deworm (an animal).
• 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.
• To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm.

Origin

• From Middle English worm, werm, wurm, wirm, from Old English wyrm, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis, possibly from *wer-. Cognate with Dutch worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Danish orm, Norwegian orm. Indo-European cognates include Latin vermis, Lithuanian var̃mas, Albanian rrime, Ancient Greek ῥόμος. First computer usage by John Brunner in his 1975 book The Shockwave Rider.
• wyrm, which is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English.