Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various predatory arthropods of the class Chilopoda, having a long flattened body composed of segments, each bearing a pair of jointed appendages. The appendages of the foremost body segment are modified into venomous claws.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A species of the Myriapoda; esp. the large, flattened, venomous kinds of the order Chilopoda, found in tropical climates. they are many-jointed, and have a great number of feet.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
segmented arthropod of classChilopoda with a large number of legs, traditionally onehundred (though most species have far fewer.)
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun chiefly nocturnal predacious arthropod having a flattened body of 15 to 173 segments each with a pair of legs, the foremost pair being modified as prehensors
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word centipede.
Examples
-
The asymmetrical advantage that enables a "centipede" is that the conspirators themselves are never outed.
Boing Boing 2008
-
The bread is out of the oven, so I can take the dog to the park, but I wanted to show you the drain centipede I rescued from the sink this morning.
now i need a place to hide away thecoughlin 2009
-
A centipede is blamed for the death of a pregnant woman in Malaysia:
Archive 2007-01-01 2007
-
The centipede is * clearly* the predator, and as such, has the right to a live kill (a natural right, not some political referendum right).
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Big centipede vs. mouse. 2006
-
But keep in mind, as it’s been said, the centipede is a pet, and as such it has to be fed.
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Big centipede vs. mouse. 2006
-
The blame in this tragedy appears misplaced: it is highly unlikely that a centipede was the culprit.
Archive 2007-01-01 2007
-
He didn't know if the centipede was the fulfillment of Candle's vision or if something worse was looming on the horizon, but he did know that their time in the underground was rapidly drawing to a close.
Armageddon's Children Brooks, Terry 2006
-
Examples are what is termed the centipede and other insects that are long in shape, for even the hinder portion of all these goes on progressing in the same direction as before when they are cut in two.
-
Examples are what is termed the centipede and other insects that are long in shape, for even the hinder portion of all these goes on progressing in the same direction as before when they are cut in two.
-
His eyebrows were of a more than wonted shagginess, growing together at the bridge of his nose, so as to form a thick excrescence of hair that bore an unsettling resemblance to a member of that singularly repellent variety of arthropod commonly known as the centipede.
Nevermore Harold Schechter 1999
sionnach commented on the word centipede
A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.
Anon.
February 9, 2009