Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various wormlike marine bivalve mollusks of the family Teredinidae, especially Teredo navalis, having rudimentary shells with which they bore into wood and often doing extensive damage to ships and wharves.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A bivalve mollusk of the genus Teredo, especially T. navalis, which bores into and destroys the timber of ships, piles, and other submerged woodwork; a ship-borer. It has very long united siphons, and thus looks like a worm. See
Tere dinidæ and Teredo.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any long, slender, worm-shaped bivalve mollusk of Teredo and allied genera. The shipworms burrow in wood, and are destructive to wooden ships, piles of wharves, etc. See
teredo .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several
wormlike marine mollusks (not true worms) of the family Teredinidae, thatbore through thewooden hulls ofships and otherwoody material entering thesea .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun wormlike marine bivalve that bores into wooden piers and ships by means of drill-like shells
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shipworm.
Examples
-
A number of maritime treasures off Sweden's southern coast are under threat from the shipworm, which is gaining a foothold in the Baltic Sea due to climate change, according to researchers at the University of Gothenburg.
-
A number of maritime treasures off Sweden's southern coast are under threat from the shipworm, which is gaining a foothold in the Baltic Sea due to climate change, according to researchers at the University of Gothenburg.
-
A number of maritime treasures off Sweden's southern coast are under threat from the shipworm, which is gaining a foothold in the Baltic Sea due to climate change, according to researchers at the University of Gothenburg.
-
De la Roquette in the French translation gives _bruma_ the meaning of "shipworm," supposing it to be a variant form of _broma_.
The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Various 1884
-
Thanks to Revere Copper, we were able to make the copper sheathing for the bottoms of our naval vessels that protected their wooden hulls from being devoured by shipworm.
Ian Fletcher: Curtains for the U.S. Military Industrial Base? Ian Fletcher 2011
-
He did, however, have a hand in another then-modern innovation: copper-hulled ships, which the Royal Navy first used in 1761 to guard against shipworm.
Lord Sandwich's Sandwiches Anne Jolis 2011
-
Thanks to Revere Copper, we were able to make the copper sheathing for the bottoms of our naval vessels that protected their wooden hulls from being devoured by shipworm.
Ian Fletcher: Curtains for the U.S. Military Industrial Base? Ian Fletcher 2011
-
Thanks to Revere Copper, we were able to make the copper sheathing for the bottoms of our naval vessels that protected their wooden hulls from being devoured by shipworm.
Ian Fletcher: Curtains for the U.S. Military Industrial Base? Ian Fletcher 2011
-
Thanks to Revere Copper, we were able to make the copper sheathing for the bottoms of our naval vessels that protected their wooden hulls from being devoured by shipworm.
Ian Fletcher: Curtains for the U.S. Military Industrial Base? Ian Fletcher 2011
-
For both plants and the shipworm, they can take inert, non-active carbon and nitrogen in the air and create building blocks.
Cool New Science Discoveries DN Lee 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word shipworm
"“It’s sort of the unicorn of mollusks,” Margo Haygood, a marine microbiologist at the University of Utah, told The Washington Post.""
-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/04/17/scientists-find-giant-elusive-clam-known-as-the-unicorn-of-mollusks
April 18, 2017