| 1. | Zoology. any of numerous long, slender, soft-bodied, legless, bilaterally symmetrical invertebrates, including the flatworms, roundworms, acanthocephalans, nemerteans, gordiaceans, and annelids. |
| 2. | (loosely) any of numerous small creeping animals with more or less slender, elongated bodies, and without limbs or with very short ones, including individuals of widely differing kinds, as earthworms, tapeworms, insect larvae, and adult forms of some insects. |
| 3. | something resembling or suggesting a worm in appearance, movement, etc. |
| 4. | Informal. a groveling, abject, or contemptible person. |
| 5. | the spiral pipe in which the vapor is condensed in a still. |
| 6. | (not in technical use) screw thread (def. 1). |
| 7. | screw conveyor. |
| 8. | a rotating cylinder or shaft, cut with one or more helical threads, that engages with and drives a worm wheel. |
| 9. | something that penetrates, injures, or consumes slowly or insidiously, like a gnawing worm. |
| 10. | worms, (used with a singular verb ) Pathology, Veterinary Pathology. any disease or disorder arising from the presence of parasitic worms in the intestines or other tissues; helminthiasis. |
| 11. | (used with a plural verb ) Metallurgy. irregularities visible on the surfaces of some metals subject to plastic deformation. |
| 12. | the lytta of a dog or other carnivorous animal. |
| 13. | computer code planted illegally in a software program so as to destroy data in any system that downloads the program, as by reformatting the hard disk. |
| 14. | to move or act like a worm; creep, crawl, or advance slowly or stealthily. |
| 15. | to achieve something by insidious procedure (usually fol. by into): to worm into another's favor. |
| 16. | Metallurgy. craze (def. 8a). |
| 17. | to cause to move or advance in a devious or stealthy manner: The thief wormed his hand into my coat pocket. |
| 18. | to get by persistent, insidious efforts (usually fol. by out or from): to worm a secret out of a person. |
| 19. | to insinuate (oneself or one's way) into another's favor, confidence, etc.: to worm his way into the king's favor. |
| 20. | to free from worms: He wormed the puppies. |
| 21. | Nautical. to wind yarn or the like spirally round (a rope) so as to fill the spaces between the strands and render the surface smooth. |

| a device for moving loose materials, consisting of a shaft with a broad, helically wound blade rotating in a tube or trough. |
| 1. | Also called worm. the helical ridge of a screw. |
| 2. | a full turn of the helical ridge of a screw. |

worm
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worms
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worm (wûrm)
n.
Any of various invertebrates, as those of the phyla Annelida, Nematoda, Nemertea, or Platyhelminthes, having a long, flexible, rounded or flattened body, often without obvious appendages.
Any of various crawling insect larvae, such as a grub or a caterpillar, having a soft, elongated body.
Any of various unrelated animals, such as the shipworm or the slowworm, resembling a worm in habit or appearance.
worms Infestation of the intestines or other parts of the body with worms or wormlike parasites; helminthiasis.
Worms
city, Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state), southwestern Germany. Worms is a port on the left (west) bank of the Rhine River, just northwest of Mannheim. Known originally as Celtic Borbetomagus, by the reign of Julius Caesar it was called Civitas Vangionum, the chief town of the Vangiones. In AD 413 it became the capital of the Burgundians, who, after disputes with the Romans, rose in revolt in 435 against the Roman governor Flavius Aelius. He called upon his Hun allies, who destroyed the city in 436. The Hun destruction of Worms and the Burgundian kingdom inspired heroic legends in the epic poem of the Nibelungenlied (c. 1200).
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