wormy, a.
(ˈwɜːmɪ)
[f. worm n. + -y1. Cf. MHG. wurmic, -ec, G. wurmig, Du. wormig.]
1. Attacked, gnawed, or bored by worms or grubs; worm-eaten.
| c 1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode ii. cxxxiii. (1869) 128, I am a wormy wilowh; who so leneth to me is lost. 1562 Legh Armorie (1568) 120 b, Studiously keping those monuments from wormie wemes. 1611 Cotgr., Vereux, wormie, full of wormes. 1708 Ozell tr. Boileau's Lutrin 54 The wormy Boards, by Time's corroding Spight disjoin'd. 1756 M. Calderwood in Coltness Collect. (Maitland Club) 213 All the fruit in that country is very wormy, and some of the finest nuts had a great worm in the kirnall. 1847 Emerson Poems, Woodnotes ii. 307 And thou,—go burn thy wormy pages. 1848 Dickens Dombey lvii, An old brown, panelled, dusty vestry,..where the wormy registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff. 1864 Lowell Fireside Trav. 176 We have picked nearly every apple (wormy or otherwise). |
| transf. 1833 in New Statist. Acc. Scotl. (1845) III. Selkirk 41 The..herbage on the hills..was destroyed by a caterpillar in 1762, long called the wormy year. |
b. fig. = worm-eaten c.
| 1611 Coryate's Crudities, Panegyr. Verses c 5 b, Old wormy age that in thy mustie writs Of former fooles records the present wits. 1908 Hardy Dynasts iii. vii. viii. 343 Europe's wormy dynasties rerobe Themselves in their old gilt. |
c. Arch. = vermiculated 1 c.
2. Of the body, its parts and secretions: Infested or affected with worms, itch-mites, etc. Of fish: Lousy (
U.S.).
| 1599 A. M. tr. Gabelhouer's Bk. Physicke 362/1 An oyntment for the Wormye, and itchinge Handes. 1600 Surflet Countrie Farme ii. xlii. 255 The iuice thereof dropped into wormie eares, doth kill the wormes that is in them. 1625 Hart Anat. Ur. ii. viii. 105 What would..he presage by such a wormie vrine? 1679 T. Trapham Disc. Health Jamaica 103 Children the chief subjects of Worms and wormy Slime. 1707 Sloane Jamaica I. 140 It is used by Chirurgeons in putrid and wormy ulcers. 1766 Compl. Farmer s.v. Ascarides, The horses that breed ascarides are, above all others, subject to slime and wormy matter. 1860 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8) XXI. 974/2 The poor of Scotland..are not more wormy than the better fed poor of England. 1884 Springfield (Mass.) Wheelmen's Gaz. Nov. 110/3 The stream was fairly alive with trout but the large ones were wormy. |
3. Of earth, soil, the grave, etc.: Infested with worms, full of worms.
| 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 384 Damned spirits all,..Alreadie to their wormie beds are gone. 1625 Milton Death fair Infant 31 Yet can I not perswade me thou are dead..Or that thy beauties lie in wormie bed. 1631 W. Lisle Faire æthiopian x. 176 The men of Sere, Who brought the King two silken robes to weare, Of daintie sleaue drawne from their wormie trees. 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 345 Loose wormey ground. 1814 Wordsw. Excurs. iii. 281 Feelingly sweet is stillness after storm, Though under covert of the wormy ground! 1838 De Quincey Shaks. Wks. 1890 IV. 76 The wormy grave brought into antagonism with the scenting of the early dawn. 1852 Hawthorne Blithedale Rom. II. iv. 71 Birds..busily scratched their food out of the wormy earth. |
| transf. 1820 Keats Isabella xlix, Wherefore all this wormy circumstance? Why linger at the yawning tomb so long? |
4. Resembling a worm; worm-like.
Formerly in
techn. terms,
esp. Anat.; as
wormy body [
tr. corpus lumbricosum: see
worm n. 11 a], the epididymis;
wormy process = vermiform process (
vermiform 3 b).
| 1545 T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde i. xi. (1552) 23 b, When thys foresayd wormye body hath attayned to the myddle regyon..of thee stone, it..is no more..thycke wrethed, but playne, smoth, and round. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 477 The anterior and posterior processes of the braine, called vermi-formes or the wormy processes. 1634 T. Johnson Parey's Wks. vi. xxix. 222 The 4. other [muscles of the hand] are called, by reason of their figure, the Lumbrici or wormy muscles. a 1682 Sir T. Browne Tracts (1683) 60 Pliny..calls it Coccus Scolecius, or the Wormy Berry. |
| 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. 220 A weary, wormy darkness, spurred i' the flank With flame, that it should eat and end itself Like some tormented scorpion. 1876 Morris æneids vii. 351 The dreadful wormy thing Seemed the wrought gold about her neck [fit tortile collo aurum ingens coluber]. 1888 Harper's Mag. Aug. 327 With fleshy, brilliant, long, wormy feelers instead of fins. 1895 B. M. Croker Village T. (1896) 152 Lumps of sticky cocoanut and deliciously long, wormy native sweets. |
b. fig. Grovelling; earthy; crooked, tortuous.
| 1640 Bp. Reynolds Passions xxxvii. 459 Hereby wee are brought to a Just Contempt of sordid and wormie Affections. Ibid. xxxviii. 499 To be of a creeping and wormy disposition,..to raise the Soule unto no higher Contemplations, than Base and Worldly. 1662 J. Chandler Van Helmont's Oriat. 353, I have constantly considered the light of the Sun married as a husband to the Splendour of the Glo-worm;..one Heavenly and constant; but the other wormy or corruptible. 1868 Browning Ring & Bk. vii. 669 That is the fruit of all such wormy ways, The indirect, the unapproved of God: You cannot find their author's end and aim. |
5. Of or pertaining to worms.
poet.| 1801 Southey Thalaba ix. xxiii, Next with naked hand, She pluck'd the boughs of the manchineel; And of the wormy wax she took, That, from the perforated tree forced out, Bewray'd its insect-parent's work within. 1842 Hood Elm Tree iii. 351 With sudden fear her wormy quest The Thrush abruptly quits. |