Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The cylindrical casting of a worm; the slender tubular mass of earth voided by the common earthworm after digestion.
- noun The fossil cast, mold, or track of a worm or some vermiform creature; a helminthite or helmintholite; a worm-burrow.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The ball started on a grotesquely wrong line, turned on a rise in the ground, cannoned off a worm-cast and plopped into the tin.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, December 12, 1917 Various
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Undying coquetry, as Mr. Stevenson so finely remarked, awoke, for the topic preceding the worm-cast had been "the sex."
Miss Mapp 1903
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That being settled, the still undecided point about the worm-cast gave rise to a good deal of heat, until, it being discovered that the window was open, and that their voices might easily carry as far as the garden-room, they made malignant rejoinders to each other in whispers.
Miss Mapp 1903
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"Think I don't know a worm-cast when I see a worm-cast?"
Miss Mapp 1903
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It was a worm-cast, sir, a cast of a worm, and you had no right to remove it.
Miss Mapp 1903
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The Sheldrake (Tadorna) feeds on the sands left uncovered by the tide, and when a worm-cast is discovered, "it begins patting the ground with its feet, dancing as it were, over the hole;" and this makes the worm come to the surface.
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a bee; a worm-cast is thrown up by a worm, and a nest wreathed by a bird; and a house built by a man, worthily, if he is worthy, and ignobly, if he is ignoble.
Selections From the Works of John Ruskin John Ruskin 1859
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"I can't pretend to be such a specialist as you in those matters," he said, "but you must allow me sufficient power of observation to know a worm-cast when I see it.
Miss Mapp 1903
chained_bear commented on the word worm-cast
According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
worm-cast, the convoluted mass of mould thrown up by an earthworm on the surface of the soil after passing through the worm's body; so worm-casting; worm-conveyor (see quot. 1910 and CONVEYOR 4b); worm-earth = worm-cast.
I like it better without the hyphen, though.
February 27, 2007