wood-louse
(ˈwʊdlaʊs)
Pl. wood-lice (-laɪs).
[f. wood n.1 + louse n.]
1. A small isopod crustacean of the genus Oniscus or family Oniscidæ; esp. the common species O. asellus, found in old wood, under stones, etc., and having the property of rolling itself up into a ball; also called † cheeselip, hog-louse, slater, sow-bug, etc.
| 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Anthoine, The vermine called, a Ches-lop, or Wood-louse. 1663 Boyle Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos. ii. 154 Those vile Insects commonly called in English, Wood-lice, or Sows. 1725 Swift Wood an Insect 3 An Insect they call a Wood-Louse, That folds up itself in itself for a House. 1844 Hood Haunted House 177 The wood-louse dropped and rolled into a ball. 1869 I. L. Bishop Notes on Old Edinb. 11 The walls were black and rotten, and alive with woodlice. |
2. Locally or occas. applied to various other small invertebrates found in woodwork or in woods, or resembling the crustacean described in 1.
a. A white ant or termite. b. A species of infusorian. c. One or more species of mite or other parasite. d. Various insects of the family Psocidæ, as the book-louse and death-watch. e. A millepede of the family Glomeridæ; a pill-millepede.
| 1666 J. Davies Hist. Caribby Isles 149 A kind of Ant..bred of rotten wood, and thence some call them Wood-lice. 1769 Ellis in Phil. Trans. LIX. 150 The volvox oniscus, or wood-louse. 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. (1772) II. 133 Wood-lice (Acarus Americanus, Linn.) abound here. 1781 [see wood-ant s.v. wood n.1 10 b]. 1819 D. B. Warden Acc. U.S. I. 496 Musquitoes and wood-lice [note, Acarus Americanus] are most troublesome in thickly wooded vallies. Ibid. II. 525 The wood louse, or Chigo, or Bete Rouge (Acarus sanguinis). 1825 Jamieson, Wood⁓louse, a book-worm. 1863 Wood Illustr. Nat. Hist. III. 631 The Great Sea-slater or Sea-woodlouse. Ibid. 632 The well-known Pill-woodlouse. |
3. attrib.
| 1796 Stedman Surinam II. xxv. 234 The..bird, which..the negroes called woodo-louso-fowlo, from its feeding on wood-lice. Ibid. (Illustration), The Yellow Woodpecker or Wood-louse fowl. 1817 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xxiii. (1818) II. 307 The woodlouse tribe (Oniscidæ). 1854 A. Adams, etc. Man. Nat. Hist. 267 Woodlouse-Millipedes (Glomeridæ). 1859 P. P. Carpenter in Rep. Smithsonian Instit. (1860) 207 Chitonidæ or Woodlouse shells. |