Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A medicine that expels intestinal worms.
  • adjective Causing expulsion of intestinal worms; anthelmintic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A remedy employed to effect the dislodgment and expulsion of intestinal worms.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) A medicine or substance that expels worms from animal bodies; an anthelmintic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective medicine, dated Referring to something that acts as a drug to cause expulsion or death of intestinal worms.
  • noun medicine, dated A drug that causes the expulsion or death of intestinal worms, such as tapeworms.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a medication capable of causing the evacuation of parasitic intestinal worms

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

c 1720, vermi- + -fuge, from Latin vermis ("worm") + fugere ("to cause to flee")

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Examples

Comments

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  • In speculative fiction, I've seen this word applied to computer worms. In fact, I see it as a sort of trend. As computer tech gives way more to bio-tech there will be more and more wrods crossing over.

    August 19, 2009