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Worm   /wərm/   Listen
Worm

noun
1.
Any of numerous relatively small elongated soft-bodied animals especially of the phyla Annelida and Chaetognatha and Nematoda and Nemertea and Platyhelminthes; also many insect larvae.
2.
A person who has a nasty or unethical character undeserving of respect.  Synonyms: dirt ball, insect, louse.
3.
A software program capable of reproducing itself that can spread from one computer to the next over a network.
4.
Screw thread on a gear with the teeth of a worm wheel or rack.



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"Worm" Quotes from Famous Books



... Egypt, but here I am like a tree into which a worm is boring always. For any trifle they put me on the ground and beat me till I am breaking. I am sick and must lie at full length; they carry me in a car, meanwhile serving men steal my ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... volume of traditions, gathered in the immediate neighbourhood of the scene of action, was privately printed in the year 1530, under the title of The Worm of Lambton.] ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various

... answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and a groan. I cannot think that{89} Col. Lloyd succeeded in marring the flesh of Old Barney very seriously, for the whip was a light, riding whip; but the spectacle of an aged man—a husband and a father—humbly kneeling before a worm of the dust, surprised and shocked me at the time; and since I have grown old enough to think on the wickedness of slavery, few facts have been of more value to me than this, to which I was a witness. It reveals slavery in its true ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... one man who passed as an English officer, another as a French Canadian, and the others called themselves Russians. None of the honest men suspected them, but they were there as spies to hatch plots for escape and get the poor devils caught in the act, and to worm out confidences which might be of value. That is the German notion of good business. I am not a British soldier to think all men are gentlemen. I know that amongst men there are desperate skellums, so I soon picked up this game. It made me ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... obtained from the cocoons of several species of insects. These insects resemble strongly the ordinary caterpillars. At a certain period of its existence the silkworm gives off a secretion of jelly-like substance. This hardens on exposure to the air as the worm forces it out and winds it ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... sea. I cannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague and complicated and awful. I can only hint of those vast and terrific vistas through which I have peered hazily at the progression of life, not upward from the ape to man, but upward from the worm. ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... sneered the girl. "You did not shoot him. Stafford did not hire you to do it. You didn't come here, pretending that you had been bitten by a rattler, so that you might have a chance to worm yourself into my brother's favor—and then shoot him. You haven't been hanging around Bear Flat all summer, pretending to look for stray Two Diamond cattle. You haven't been trying to make a fool of me——" Her voice trembled ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... chairs in which that worthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the table at which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his old friend—on the wrong side—Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only the worm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books lay in mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence the laths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and there were rotten places in the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... ye exiles, who so long wander over the world, Where will ye find a resting place for your weary steps? The wild dove has its nest, and the worm a clod of earth, Each man a country, but the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... undying worm of German thought—I am speaking of the thought of the choice few who enlighten the present and anticipate the future. I see an heroic people, intoxicated by its triumphs, by its great riches, by its numbers, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... she was dressed to pay a visit to some of her friends; but I hope she will not be proud, and get too fond of going from home; she should remember that her frock was made out of the poor silk-worm's winter house, that her shoes were made out of the skin of a goat, and the pearls about her neck were drawn from the bottom of the sea, and that unless she is pleasant, affectionate, and kind, no body will like her better for her new clothes. There are some little girls ...
— Spring Blossoms • Anonymous

... just what kept the warbler without his breakfast; but he knew very well that the part he did not understand did not concern him, so he gave a little flutter of his wings and swooped down like a brown bullet upon a big fat worm that was wriggling along the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a glow-worm. The mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them. From their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor, and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered and ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis

... replied Dr Thorpe, "that the fellow knoweth not his business. He must have cold blood in his veins, as a worm hath. I might search the Decalogue a great while ere I came to his two commandments—'Thou shalt not sorrow,' and 'Thou shalt not love thy neighbour ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... people worm themselves into almost every human organization. It is all the more shocking, however, when they make their way into a Government such as ours, which is based on the principle of justice for all. Such unworthy public servants must be weeded out. I intend to see to it that Federal employees ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... repaying the least attention by a development and profuseness of yield that is surprising. Next in importance to the product of rice, which is the staple food of the people, comes that of the mulberry and tea-plants, one species of the former not only feeding the silk-worm, but also, as has been mentioned, affording the fibre of which paper is made, as well as cordage and dress material. In usefulness the bamboo is most remarkable, growing to a height of fifty or sixty feet, and entering into the construction of house-frames, screens, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... have had no trouble with worm in our chestnuts. In fact we have not found a single wormy chestnut. This interests us appreciably, as when the old American chestnuts were common on our farm it would seem as if hardly a chestnut escaped a worm hole if you kept them long enough. If you ate the chestnuts immediately it wasn't ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... to follow the slow-worm, which was making for a patch of heath, and she was still watching it when, some time after, Grip came running up quickly, snarling and growling, and pausing from time ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... instead of which, here I am, a respectable fairy once more, and my late wife (though I ought not to call her that, for goodness knows she was early enough hustling me out of my nest before daybreak, with the unpleasant proverb about the early bird catching the worm!)—I suppose I should say my early wife—is at this juncture a widow. Now, where ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... formation, with which the twenty miles are occupied, as truly enormous. And yet it is but one of three that occur in a single system. We reach the long flat bay of Dunnet, and cross its waste of sands. The incoherent coils of the sand-worm lie thick on the surface; and here a swarm of buzzing flies, disturbed by the foot, rises in a cloud from some tuft of tangled sea-weed; and here myriads of gray crustaceous sand-hoppers dart sidelong in the little pools, or vault from the drier ridges a few inches into the air. Were the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... his errand. A private room was speedily engaged; and into it Mr. Pickwick was ushered without delay." Having been settled comfortably therein, partaken of dinner and listened to Sam's philosophy about a good night's rest, he allowed that worthy to go and "worm ev'ry secret out o' the boots' heart" regarding the whereabouts of Fitz Marshall, as he assured Mr. Pickwick he could do in five minutes. As good as his word he returned with his information that the gentleman in question also had a private room in the "Angel," but was dining out that night ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... whispered, looking at him shyly, through lowered lids. "There is a choice. But it rests with you. Mr. West, if you want me to do this thing—if you really want me to, and it's a big thing to do, even for you—I'll do it. There! I'll do it! I'll go on living like a chopped worm for your sake. But—but—you'll have to do something for me in return. Now I wonder if you can guess ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full of love—near to his! If she could! She could not; shame froze her, choked not speech only but act; she was dumb through and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... former joys, connexions, and pursuits. A new taste contracted, seeks companions suited to itself. But pleasures easiest tasted, though perhaps at first of higher glee, are soonest past, and, the more they are relied upon, leave the severer sting behind. One cloudy day despoils the glow-worm of all ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing to some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able to exist in brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate of soda and lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during the long summer, the surface ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... Tom had another look at "Major Piff," who bent his terrible, scornful gaze upon him, making poor Tom feel like an insignificant worm. But the imperious Prussian's stare netted him not half so much in the matter of valuable data as Tom derived from his rather timid scrutiny. Yet he would almost have preferred to face the muzzle of a field-piece rather than wither ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... cord, consisting of two chains of swellings, or nerve-knots, resting upon the floor or under side of the body; and the heart, or dorsal vessel, situated just under the skin of the back; and in looking at living caterpillars, such as the cut-worm, and many thin-skinned aquatic larvae, we can see this long tubular heart pulsating about as often as our own heart, and when the insect is held against its will, or is agitated, the rapidity of the pulsations increases just as ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... and humble servants" of others, has passed into one of the commonest forms of address, many prayers are made up of similar expressions of humility and contrition, the votary calling himself a "miserable sinner" and a "vile worm," and on the other hand magnifying his Lord as greater than all other gods, mighty and helpful to those ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... "textile" are included the fibrous substances that can be spun into threads, and woven or felted into cloth. Some of these, like the covering of the sheep, goat, and llama, or the cocoon of the silk-worm, are of animal origin; others, like cotton furze, the husk of the cocoanut, and the bast of the flax-plant are vegetable products. Their use in the manufacture of cloth antedates the period at which ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... character; and at the same time taking it into her ever-creative brain that Constantine's coldness bore a striking affinity to the caution of Edgar Mandelbert, she wiped the rouge from her pretty face, and prepared to "let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... "Slow worm!" cried Pierre, and he cuffed Hyacinthe as he passed in. Hyacinthe rubbed his head and said nothing. He was used to blows. He wondered why his master was in the workshop at that time of day instead of drinking brandy at the ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... marry far out of their degree for the sake of a beautiful face; and why a Perpetual Curate should be so much more lofty in his sentiments, puzzled and irritated the clerk of St Roque's. "There aint a worm but will turn when he's trod upon," said Mr Elsworthy to himself; and when his temper was roused, he became impertinent, according to the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... of the charms of the old romantic chronicle, - not the less true that, in this respect, it approaches nearer to the usual tone of romance. It is in such writings that we may look to find the form and pressure of the age. The worm-eaten state-papers, official correspondence, public records, are all serviceable, indispensable, to history. They are the framework on which it is to repose; the skeleton of facts which gives it its strength and proportions. But they are as worthless as the dry bones ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... arm timidly, and asked him if he liked terrapin. Her colour was deeper, but she exerted herself to keep the attention of this huge personality whom a poor worm might ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... to me so?" said Halbert Glendinning; "or is there any pastime in grovelling on the ground there like a gigantic kail-worm?—Get out of thy painted case, or, by my knighthood, I will treat you like the beast and reptile you ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... drivers; these were ordered back to Ghizr, as they could be more easily fed there, and would be protected by the garrison of the post. I eventually got back to Ghizr before dark and reported events, and, just my luck, got a bad go of fever the next day. Great Scott! I did feel a worm! I was shivering with ague and my face was like a furnace. I hadn't a bit of skin on it either, and it was painful to eat or laugh from the cracked state of my lips. I managed to struggle through some necessary official ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... pay back the friends who had given him shillings and clothes. He thought of Flea, whose Sundays he was spoiling—poor Flea, who ought to be in them now, shining before his girl. "I daresay he'll be ashamed and not go to see her, and then she'll take the other man." He was also very hungry. That worm Mrs. Elliot would be through her lunch by now. Trying his braces round him, and tearing up those old wet documents, he stepped forth to make money. A villainous young brute he looked: his clothes were dirty, and he had lost the ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... British uniform at the moment. As for the witness himself, he had misdoubted me all along, but the colonel had trusted me and had sent me on some secret mission, the inwardness of which he, John Whittlesey, had been unable to come at, though he confessed that he had tried to worm it out of me before parting company with me ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... I crave pardon,) this worm, (little animals, forgive the insult,) was raised to a higher life than he was born to, for he was raised to the society of blackguards. Some fortune—kind to him, cruel to us—has tossed him to the Secretaryship of State. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... large, and all the streets very wide, and because each house has a plot of eighty feet in front by twice that in depth. The houses likewise are all of one storey, as the country has no wood fit for joists or flooring-deals, every kind which it produces becoming worm-eaten in three years. The houses, however, are large and magnificent, and have many chambers and very convenient apartments. The walls are built on both sides of brick, leaving a hollow between of five feet, which is filled up with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... whose citizens care only for their own present, and not for the future of their country! the future, in which they have to live immortally by children and children's children, with whose glory and happiness and power they ought now to sympathize. Men or nations secluded are like the silk-worm, which secretes itself in a self-woven case, and at length creeps out to die. So will it at length be with the nation which is ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... maritima. SEA WORMWOOD. Tops. D.—In taste and smell, it is weaker and less unpleasant than the common worm-wood. The virutes of both are supposed to be of the same kind, and ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... the insects of an hour, Crushed like the noteless worm amid the regions of their power; Ye drive them from their fathers' lands, ye break of faith the seal, But can ye from the court of heaven exclude their ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... quite capable of giving back as good as I get, but it isn't worth while, because if one does yield to the temptation, afterwards one feels such a worm. There is no doubt it is more difficult in India than at home to obey the command of one's childhood: "to behave pretty and be a lady." What is a lady exactly? I used to be told that a lady was one who always said "please" when asking for more bread-and-butter, and who ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... infinite, can so give order and form to the universe. Who else or what else is able to foresee and provide all things needful for the food and clothing of man, - food from the fruits of earth and from animals, and clothing from the same? How marvelous that so insignificant a creature as the silk-worm should clothe in silk and splendidly adorn both women and men, from queens and kings to maidservants and menservants, and that insignificant insects like the bees should supply wax for the candles by which temples and palaces are made brilliant. These and many other things are manifest ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... but as for myself I can truthfully say I was never more hopeful in my life. There may be storms in the future, obstacles to meet and overcome, but self reliant, and trusting in Him who observes the struggles even of the worm, I hope to soon reach my proper place among men, and in the end reap the golden harvest of success. The world is full of kind-hearted people who are ready to help those who, though unfortunate, are willing to help themselves. Scores of men annually go out from the ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... cloaked and furred, went by on the water or on the banks; the deep woods of the shores were black and gray and brown. Poor August could see nothing of a scene that would have delighted him; as the stove was now set, he could only see the old worm-eaten ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)

... whose control, while the train makes its running, is but nominal, is then the first to suffer!" He saw himself in the man's place. "Poor glow-worm!" he cried, "he may change the green light in his tail to red—or was it red to begin with? but it is no use! Those proletarian forces descending upon him from the rear are quite blind in their purpose: ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... we remain without, John Carter; here is a slight chance for one of us. Take it and you may live to avenge me, it is useless for me to attempt to worm my way into so small an opening with this horde of demons besetting us ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... old woman; "and O that you suld be endangered wi'them! but wha can help it?—ye were ill eneugh guided, and, as I tell your uncle, if ye tread on a worm it ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... desperate race. An old Roachback knows more about traps than half a dozen ordinary trappers; he knows more about plants and roots than a whole college of botanists. He can tell to a certainty just when and where to find each kind of grub and worm, and he knows by a whiff whether the hunter on his trail a mile away is working with guns, poison, dogs, traps, or all of them together. And he has one general rule, which is an endless puzzle to the hunter: "Whatever ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... nothing more destructive of all those noble feelings which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot. When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... to flee; but wrath held me rooted to the spot. Cloud on cloud rose above me, each inscribed, 'Eternity!' A voice cried aloud, 'Forever!' and another replied, 'Forever and ever!' The waves of fire now rolled over me, and the worm that dieth not seized hold of me. I begged for even the smallest mitigation of misery, and the vials of wrath were poured out upon me. In my anguish I cried, 'Roll on, ye eternal ages!' But why? They will be no nearer ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... why You love to make man's life a villainous thing, And pose his happiness with heavy words. You mean to puff your craft into a likeness Of what hath been in the great days of the Gods. When Tiamat, the old foul worm from hell, Lay coiled and nested in the unmade world, All the loose stuff dragg'd with her rummaging tail And packt about her belly in a form, Where she could hutch herself and bark at Heaven,— The god's bright soldier, Bel, fashioned a wind; And ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... He got nervous; and, in a weak moment, let his mother worm out of him that he was at war with the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... the house in which I was born. A pang shot through my heart at that instant. Until that moment I had dreamed of my father's seeing me whilst I was yet a great way off, of resting my weary head upon his warm, infolding heart. But now the dream faded, and a pain as of an undying worm gnawed already on my soul. I paused at the gate, nearly paralyzed by fear. Was he dead? No; I felt this was not the case; but I felt that something worse than this was about to befall me. I gained strength to enter the hall, and sat down there. I heard several voices. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... being blackened and aspersed among this nest of boon companions, and through them, perhaps, into the world; and beside my abandoned wretch of a husband, the base, malignant Grimsby, and the false villain Hargrave, this boorish ruffian, coarse and brutal as he was, shone like a glow-worm in the dark, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... suspicions; so poor Mrs. Tuis had to take her turn at facing the ordeal, and I had to drill and coach her for it. I had a vision of the poor lady going in to her niece, and suddenly collapsing. Then there would begin a cross-examination, and Sylvia would worm out the truth, and we might have a case of puerperal ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... hall. Round the walls hung pictures in tarnished frames. Rich furniture, damp-stained and worm-eaten, stood stiffly arranged as if for some great function. Only here and there was evidence of some disorder. A table was upset near the fireplace. The covering of a chair had been torn, and the hair stuffing of ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... pursuing, I have but only worked my own undoing, Like to the worm that by its subtle art Spins its own grave. Hast ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... lips are pure, and mine are soiled, For Guilt has been my paramour, and Sin Lain in my bed: O Guido, if you love me Get hence, for every moment is a worm Which gnaws your life away: nay, sweet, get hence, And if in after time you think of me, Think of me as of one who loved you more Than anything on earth; think of me, Guido, As of a woman merely, one who tried To make her life a sacrifice to love, And ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... frown on me. But if I do not go there, nor you come here, except to imperious mysterious invitations, which will not be repeated, the future is dust as well as the past: for me, at least. Dust here, dust there!—if one could be like a silk-worm, and live lying on the leaf one feeds on, it would be a sort of answer to the riddle—living out of the dust, and in the present. I find none in my religion. No doubt, Madame de Breze did: why did you call Diane so ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... walking over to Red and informing that person that he, Red, was a worm-eaten prune and that for half a wink he, Johnny, would prove it. Red grabbed him by the seat of his corduroys and the collar of his shirt and helped him outside, where they strolled about, taking pot shots at whatever their ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... I am not living in a talking, babbling world, nor yet among people who are trying to worm facts out of me; you needn't look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England; I shall be out of temptation, for no one will ask me. Stay!' (interrupting ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... deemed that the time for his testing was come, and once again he set an adder in the meal-sack and bade the lad bake bread. And the boy feared not the worm, but kneaded it with the dough and baked all together. So Sigmund cherished him as his own son, and he grew strong and valiant and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... from the fifty-eight families he had differentiated—"a touching though transitory image,'' says Cuvier, "of the more durable monument which he has erected to himself in his works.'' Besides the books already mentioned he published papers on the ship-worm, the baobab tree, the Adansonia digitata of Linnaeus, the origin of the varieties of cultivated plants, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... honey to sweeten the feast. With steps most majestic the Snail did advance, And he promised the gazers a minuet to dance; But they all laughed so loud that he drew in his head, And went in his own little chamber to bed. Then, as evening gave way to the shadows of night, Their watchman, the Glow-worm, come out with his light. So home let us hasten, while yet we can see, For no watchman is waiting for you ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... wait to have their curiosity satisfied until their aunt Polly and Captain Dresser came up to London at Christmastide; when at length the two of them managed to worm the secret out ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... in multiplying be an indirect helper, by enabling the herbivora on which the carnivore preys to get more food, and thus to nourish the carnivore more abundantly; the direct helper may be best illustrated by reference to some parasitic creature, such as the tape-worm. The tape-worm exists in the human intestines, so that the fewer there are of men the fewer there will be of tape-worms, other things being alike. It is a humiliating reflection, perhaps, that we may be classed ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

... she may bear it well; but recollect how many are the lonely days and nights that she must pass during your absence, and how much she must require the consolation and help of others. A secret like this must be as a gnawing worm, and, strong as she may be in courage, must shorten her existence but for the support and the balm she may receive from the ministers of our faith. It was cruel and selfish of you, Philip, to leave her, a lone woman, to bear up against your ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... of bones; Relickes they been, as were they, echone! Then have I, in Latin a shoder-bone, Which that was of an holy Jewes shepe. Good men, fay, take of my words kepe! If this bone be washen in any well, If cow, or calfe, shepe, or oxe swell That any worm hath eaten, or hem strong, Take water of this well, and wash his tong. And it is hole a-non: And furthermore, Of pockes, and scabs, and every sore Shall shepe be hole, that of this well Drinketh a draught: Take keep of that I tell! If that the good man, that beasts oweth, Woll every ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... our sexual lives to go on as they have been lately among us, for it is plain to me that our moral code—that marriage itself cannot stand, and, indeed, is not standing, the strain of our dishonesties. Our social life is worm-eaten and crumbling into rottenness with secret and scandalous hidden relationships; these dark and musty by-ways and corners of sexual conduct want to be spring-cleaned and made decent. Never before have we needed so urgently to put ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... up his jewels. They can't enter the kingdom of Heaven; there is no place for them there. Why can't you repent? 'Spose you die in a drunken fit, how will I have the heart to work when I remember where you've got to; 'where the worm never dieth, and the fire is ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... have a new reel to my fishing-rod. The old one has never been the same since I made a windlass of it for the battleship when it was a canal-boat, and it fell into the water when we made a landslide and accident which was buried for three days and had a worm in the works. Also a v. sharp knife for reindeer, etc. They are tough, I hear, and my knife is sharpest at the back since opening sardines and other tins, all rather small." He drove a fevered pen, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resur- rection, A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection. Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... undying memories of sins so black that only the silent Vatican archives held record of them; memories of unholy loves, of deaths whose manner may not be written, of births whereat the angels shuddered. Torch-scarred walls and worm-tunnelled furniture whispered their secrets to him, rusty daggers confessed their bloody histories, and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian contarella spoke of a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... thick, dark worm-shape was swinging around in the dim lock to regain the open hall. It had seen the trap. But the freight door switch went flat beside the other, and the freight door rose with massive swiftness. The heavy body smashed against it, went sliding ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... find that it is, not to the artist only, but to all of us. The laws under which matter is collected and constructed are the same throughout the universe: the substance so collected, whether for the making of the eagle, or the worm, may be analyzed into gaseous identity; a diffusive vital force, apparently so closely related to mechanically measurable heat as to admit the conception of its being itself mechanically measurable, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... to picking fruit before it is ripe! Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some is nipped in the bud; some is worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, is bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rare, ripe apples hang until frozen and worthless on the leafless boughs! ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail, That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... and talked so freely that I hoped to worm some information out of him, but the rascal guarded his tongue well, only letting fall a hint that we might take a long journey on the following night. Still I gathered from his air of mystery, and the importance he displayed, that the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... explain it. We cannot. Stanley, who like charity had borne all things, endured all things, believed all things, suddenly became a new creature, a creature of rage, blind, consuming, terrible! You have heard of the worm turning? This was a case of a worm turning into ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... that which controls universal selection; they are drawn towards the kamic elements of men and animals, and it is here that we ought to place the list of those misdeeds, by reason of which these elements pass into bodies of animals or men of inferior development. "A drunken priest becomes a worm," says Manu, "a stealer of corn, a rat; the murderer of a Brahman, a dog, a tiger, or a serpent"—and this means that those elements which, in man, serve as a basis for the passions, at death, pass over into the bodies of animals that possess the same passions or ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... daughter, wife, mother, whose life has been given to unselfish labors, who has filled a place which it seems to others only an angel would make good, reproaches herself with incompetence and neglect of duty. The humble Christian, who has been a model to others, calls himself a worm of the dust on one page of his diary, and arraigns himself on the next for coming short of the perfection ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... what he's about," said the captain. "If he laid hold of that there rope, and we tried to draw him aboard, that snipperjack would take him like a perch does a worm in the old ponds at home. Here, lower away that boat, and I'll go ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... In those tropical countries the trees are tenanted by countless varieties of created things. Their wood affords rich feeding to the large, fat, pulpy grubs of beetles of the families Buprestidae, Dynastidae, Passalidae, and, above all, that glorious group the Longicornia. These beetles worm their way into the wood, making often long tunnels, feeding as they work, and leaving their ejecta in the shape of agglomerated sawdust. It is into the long holes drilled by these beetles that the Aye-Aye searches with his long fingers, one of which, on the fore-hand, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... said. "Yes, he ought to feel rather a worm now; he has written me several very agitated letters. But really I cannot help it. The affair is over—done with. I regard the letters as my personal property. I cannot see that it is any ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... nothing: but the voice of the white man, Fyles, had golden words that our braves do not know, and I listened. Konto did a brave thing. Fyles, because he was a great man of the Company, would not fight, and drove him like a dog. Then he made my father as a worm in the eyes of the world. I would give my life for Fyles the trader, but I would give more than my life to wipe out my father's shame, and to show that Konto of the Little Crees is no dog. I have been carried by the hands of the old men of my people, I have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... perhaps, we need not seek For causes young or old: the canker-worm Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek, As well as further drain the wither'd form: Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week His bills in, and however we may storm, They must be paid: though six days smoothly run, The seventh will bring blue ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... nor had she been thinking much of them till a letter from Mr. Goren arrived one day, which caused her to pass them seriously in review. Always an early bird, and with maxims of her own on the subject of rising and getting the worm, she was standing in a small perch in the corner of the shop, dictating accounts to Mrs. Fiske, who was copying hurriedly, that she might earn sweet intervals for gossip, when Dandy limped up and delivered the letter. Mrs. Fiske worked hard while her aunt was occupied in reading it, for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... behaved less like a fool when that automobile overtook me, I might not have given that young idiot, whose Christian name it seemed was Victor, the opportunity to be smart at my expense. That girl with the dark eyes might not have looked at me as if I were a worm or a June bug. Confound her! what right had she to look at me like that? Victor, or whatever his name was, was a cub and a cad and as fresh as the new paint on Ben Small's lighthouse, but he had deigned ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... registers impressions, and from time to time receives spiritual warnings and perceives spiritual beings. Serious men are now boldly investigating. Little help comes from the sectarians who seem to begrudge God his universe; everything has to be cheapened to the worm's-eye view of little Bethel, which steeped in politics has long lost sense of the spiritual. The old Greeks and Latins were acute thinkers, yet they believed in spiritual beings and their appearances. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... Yada to follow him, and led the way up the stairs to the very top of the house. He conducted the Japanese into the small room in which were some ancient moth-and-worm-eaten bits of furniture, an old chest or two, and a plenitude of dust—and carefully closed the door when he and his captive had ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... no flag. It was the district schoolhouse where for nearly half his life Deborah's grandfather had taught a score of pupils. Inside were a blackboard, a rusty stove, a teacher's desk and a dozen forms, grown mouldy and worm-eaten now. A torn and faded picture of Lincoln was upon one wall, half hidden by a spider's web and by a few old dangling rags which once had been red, white and blue. Below, still clinging to the wall, was an old scrap of paper, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks, And the death-watch ticks, And the bar has a flag of smut, And a cat's in ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... him by Hillbrant, one of his prisoners, that Christian, on the night before he left Tahiti, had declared his intention of settling on Duke of York's Island; and third, the discovery on Palmerston Island of the Bounty's driver yard, much worm-eaten from long immersion. It must be confessed that hopes founded on these clues did little credit to Edwards' intelligence. Aitutaki, having been discovered by Bligh, was the last place Christian would have chosen: he might have guessed that a man ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... I lov'd, I quaff'd like thee; I died, but earth my bones resign: Fill up—thou canst not injure me, The worm hath ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... Good in All. Dodd, the forger, was a better man than most of us: Eugene Aram, the homicide, would turn his foot from a worm. Do not mistake us. Society demands, requires that these madmen should be rendered harmless. There is no nature dead to all Good. Lady Macbeth would have slain the old king, Had he not resembled ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... That man! That worm! That mean, sycophantic...He was beginning to get angry. He must not get angry. That's what Puddifoot had said, that had been the one thing that old Puddifoot had said correctly. He must not ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... seems to have been a chimney, the foundation of which has been found, and indications of there having been ditches surrounding their dwelling, which was small. We found, also, large pieces of hewn, worm-eaten timber, and some three or four cannon-balls. All these things show clearly that there was a settlement there founded by Christians; and what leads me to say and believe that it was that of Jacques Cartier is the fact that there is no evidence whatever that any ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... flower, Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin, Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaick; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: Other creature here, Bird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none, Such was their awe of Man. In shadier bower More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess, With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs, Espoused Eve decked first her ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... authenticity about them. A Raphael of his make long graced the Imperial Gallery of Russia. He did not confine himself to literal repetitions, but concocted new "originals" by combining parts of several pictures in worm-eaten panels or time-stained canvases, with such variations of motive or design as their supposed authors would naturally have made in repeating their ideas in fresher combinations,—sometimes leaving portions unfinished, ingeniously dirtying ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... from us! The rich folks rob as they sit in their chimney-corners,—and more profitably, too, than by picking up a few sticks in the woods. I don't see no game-keepers or patrols after Monsieur Gaubertin, who came here as naked as a worm and is now worth his millions. It's easy said, 'Robbers!' Here's fifteen years that old Guerbet, the tax-gatherer at Soulanges, carries his money along the roads by the dead of night, and nobody ever took a farthing from him; is that like a land of robbers? has robbery made ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau

... experience, packed into such shapes as prove cogent in thought and practice. The stuff of external reality, the matter out of which its idea is made, is therefore continuous with the stuff and matter of our own minds. Their common substance is the immediate flux. This living worm has propagated by fission, and the two halves into which it has divided its life are mind and nature. Mind has kept and clarified the crude appearance, the dream, the purpose that seethed in the mass; nature has appropriated the order, the constant conditions, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Year by year the branches have dropped off, the snow and the lightning have had their victims. It is said that only two or three years ago one branch towards the East was still living, but when I saw it, the trunk was bare and bark-less, full of little worm-holes, and quite without a spark of vitality. The last remaining fragment has since fallen, and now the site of the tree is only marked by the row of young cypresses which have been planted in a circle round the base of the Oak of Mamre. But who shall prophesy ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... till about midnight, which is their curfew; for you seldom meet one of these lantern-bearers later, though you may still, in returning from a late party, be stopped with momentary admiration at beholding a magnificent glow-worm burning her tail away at a great rate, and lighting up some dark recess unvisited by star or moon, herself a star, and giving sufficient light to enable you to read the small print of a newspaper a foot off! But who shall attempt to describe his first acquaintance with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... for her without going out of the city of New York. And if she wanted a big fortune, I would have found her twenty that she would have had hard work to spend: money down—not tied up in fever-stricken lands and worm-eaten villas! What is the name of the young man? Prince Castaway, or ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... much like all the others. It contains the same procession of specialty-mongers, the same cacophony of rag-time, the same gangway out into the audience which refreshes tired business men with a thrilling, worm's-eye view of dancing girls' knees au naturel. And up and down this straight and narrow pathway of the chorus there is the customary parade of the same haughty beauties of Broadway. Only in one item is there a deviation from the usual formula: the costumes. For several ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... adorn'd my naked soul, And made salvation mine, Upon a poor polluted worm He makes ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... May-fly, in the late twilight, was offered to them in vain. In windy or cloudy weather it was just as useless; indeed, I never saw them rise, except in a warm summer stillness, at and after sunset. Probably they would have taken a small red worm, pitched into the ripple of a rise; but we did not try that. After a few evenings, they seemed to give up rising altogether. I don't feel certain that they had not been netted: yet no trout seemed to be on sale in the ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... was criminal!' she says, an' her eyes snapped like a whip; 'it was criminal! an' if I find out for sure that you are guilty, I'll put you where you'll never do it again.' Th' young gent smirked at her an' squirmed like a worm. 'You're wrong, Mrs. Barrett,' he says, lookin' like th' meek puppy he is, 'an' you'll have t' look some place else for th' person that done it.' But she wouldn't talk no longer—jus' walked out, as mad as ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... was something of a fisherman, as Toby well understood. Indeed, he knew more about the habits of the tricky bass than any of the boys in Chester; for as a rule they had been content simply to angle with a worm, and take "pot-luck," while Jack had read up on the subject, and even done more or less fancy fly fishing amidst ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... was the room next to hers. It was a room Letty could well believe was haunted, for she had never seen another equally gloomy. The ceiling was low and sloping, the window tiny, and the walls exhibited all sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm-eaten, stood in one recess, a black oak chest in another, and at right angles with the door, in another recess, stood a wardrobe that used to creak and groan alarmingly every time Letty walked a long ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... other. Thus his colony would be useful on grounds of high policy, as well as for its own ends. And in order additionally to conciliate the good will of the home government, controlled as it was by mercantile interests chiefly, the silk-worm should be cultivated there, and England thus saved the duties on the Italian fabrics. Should there be slaves in the new Eden?—On all accounts, No: first because slavery was intrinsically wrong, and secondly because it would lead to idleness, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... night were the watchers disturbed. Two convicts endeavored to worm their way up to the hut unseen but were quickly spotted by the captain who emptied his revolver at them without any other effect than to cause them to take to their heels. Aside from this incident ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... of the chestnuts (noticing carefully if any are worm-eaten), and boil for half an hour in sufficient water to cover; remove the shells and skins and fry a few minutes in the butter, stir in the flour and salt and fry again, then pour in the milk and parsley and stir ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich

... Jersey nurseryman assured us of his firm conviction in the power of guano to cure the yellows in peach trees—that no grub or worm can be found alive in the roots of a tree where guano is applied—that young trees can be brought into bearing by the use of guano, a year earlier than by any other forcing process with which ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... alone—oh be thou near to me, Great God! from whom the meanest are not far. Not in presumption of the daring spirit, Striving to find the secrets of itself, Make I my weeping prayer; in the deep want Of utter loneliness, my God! I seek thee; If the worm may creep up to thy fellowship, Or dust, instinct with yearning, rise towards thee. I have no fellow, Father! of my kind; None that be kindred, none companion to me, And the vast love, and harmony, and brotherhood, Of the dumb creatures thou hast made below me, Vexes ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... in which a young girl of noble birth (whose sister was fond of eating chalk, cinnamon, and cloves) experienced extreme pleasure in smelling old books. It would appear, however, that in this case the fascination lay not so much in the odor of the leather as in the mouldy odor of worm-eaten books; "faetore veterum liborum, a blattis et tineis exesorum, situque prorsus ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... gone before you, that for you and you alone this thing should be done? Why, were it not that you are mad, you would be among the chief of sinners; you who dare to ask that the Powers of Heaven should be set within your feeble hand, that the Angels of Heaven should wait upon your mortal breath. Worm that you are, has God need of such as you? If it is His will to turn the heart of yonder people He will do it, but not by means of you. You and the servant whom you are deluding to his death will ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... episode of the element of the marvellous with which Voltaire had surrounded it. He called to his aid the testimony of the Duc de Choiseul, who, having in vain attempted to worm the secret of the Iron Mask out of Louis XV, begged Madame de Pompadour to try her hand, and was told by her that the prisoner was the minister of an Italian prince. At the same time that Dutens wrote, "There is no fact in history ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is ruined! He has provided himself with machines and thinks it is good! While the machine is the devil's trap for you. He thus catches you in it. While toiling, you find no time for sin, but having a machine—you have freedom. Freedom kills a man, even as the sunbeams kill the worm, the dweller of the depth ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... on tiptoe, searching together every hole and corner of the house, which, to judge by its foundations, must be very ancient, notwithstanding the fragile appearance of its panels of white paper. It contains the blackest of cavities, little vaulted cellars with worm-eaten beams; cupboards for rice which smell of mould and decay; mysterious hollows where lies accumulated the dust of centuries. In the middle of the night, and during a hunt for thieves, this part of the house, as yet unknown to ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... country. Men that will tear up track are quite capable of picking off a sentry. A giant chestnut gives us little dots of shade from its pigmy leaves. The country about us is open and newly ploughed. Some of the worm-fences are new, and ten rails high; but the farming is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... and to have arrived at an Inn, in which I was offered shelter and rest. The apartment given me consisted of a bedroom and parlour, communicating, and furnished in an antique manner, everything in the rooms appearing to be worm-eaten, dusty and out of date. The walls were bare and dingy; there was not a picture or an ornament in the apartment. An extremely dim light prevailed in the scene; indeed, I do not clearly remember, whether, with the exception of the fire and a nightlamp, the rooms ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... on the top rail of the worm fence, and laughed. It was good to have Sammy deliver her message in just that way. "I reckon Uncle Ike thinks I ought to go dancin' all over the hills now, with a chip on my ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... the white head of Vulso, The great Arician seer, And Nepos of Laurentum The hunter of the deer; And in the back false Sextus Felt the good Roman steel, And wriggling in the dust he died, Like a worm beneath the wheel: And fliers and pursuers Were mingled in a mass; And far away the battle Went roaring through ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the sight of a single rider who advanced from the distant Union camp. He did not take the dusty road which swept in a wide, half-circle to where the waiting troopers sat in line, but jumped a low worm-fence and came ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... addition to our limited fare. The natives themselves had but two meals a day—breakfast, between eight and nine o'clock, and then an enormous feast in the late afternoon. Their ordinary food consisted of kangaroo, emu, snakes, rats, and fish; an especial dainty being a worm found in the black ava tree, or in ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... No; this maggot is on the root, the cabbage butterfly lays its eggs on the leaf. You get the cabbage worm from the cabbage butterfly. ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... Did you not shoot down my father in the wood, fearing lest he should prove you traitor, and after rob me of my heritage? Did you not compel your monks to work evil and bring some of them to their deaths? Oh! have done! Worm dressed up as God's priest, how can you writhe there and ask ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... is not particularly good, and if great anticipations exist on this score, I must say that they will not, in my opinion, be realized. Small fish on which the trout feed are abundant, as also the cadis worm and fly, and the trout do not take readily an artificial bait, either fly or minnow. I cannot, therefore, say that I think many trout can be caught. There is also much fishing with small nets. I can, however, teach Danish to ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... some experience, Fosco, of your roundabout ways, and I am not so sure that you won't worm it out of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of enduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and the tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age. The dusty cobwebs under the ceiling had the look of not having had ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... soldier, a man of war, or a fighting man Mahmahkahdezing, v. to boast Megoos, n. an awl Menis, n. an island Mahwewin, v. to cry Memenik, v. be quiet Mahskekeh, n. medicine Mahnedoosh, n. an insect, a worm Mahbah, this one Mesahkoodoonahgun, n. beard, the hair that grows on the lips and chin Mondahmin, n. corn Mechekahnok, n. a fence Metegoominzhe, n. an oak Mahskooda, n. plains, flats, or level ground Mahgeahyah, adj. big Mahgoobedoong, v. to squeeze Mayahgezid, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield

... been a good son to me. Oh, Mr. Hare, he might have lived to comfort me, and close my old eyes in death, if they had not been so cruel with him, and locked him within prison walls. He, who never dreamed of wrong, and never injured willingly a worm ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... dishonor, bribery and perverted conscience are worse. The burst of a thunder cloud may break down a forest of lofty pines, but the slow delving of the mole may undermine a thousand habitations. The secret corrosions of the ship-worm will sink ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams

... thee a starry canopy, such as king never possessed. Who can tell from what quarter the tempest may bring from afar, from other lands, the seeds of the ivy, and scatter them by thy side, and the ivy arises and twines lovingly around thee, and chokes thee, lovely flower! This is not all: the worm has crawled to thy root, hath fixed its fang therein, and kills ye both, if some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... countrymen, and thinks that little much. Like San Martin, he dignifies scepticism in religion, laxity of morals, and coldness of heart, if not cruelty, with the name of philosophy; and while he could shew creditable sensibility for the fate of a worm, would think the death or torture of a political opponent matter for congratulation." I was his political opponent, as wishing to uphold the authority of the Supreme Director, and hence, no doubt, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... more forcibly reminded of his deficiency in this respect from observing yonder hummingbird's nest, which is a marvel of fitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem,—the body of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the down of some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping with the branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together by threads as fine and grail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks and musical turn, we might reasonably ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... four divinely constituted beasts is the Lung, Japanese Ri[o], or Dragon, which has the power of transformation and of making itself visible or invisible. At will it reduces itself to the size of a silk-worm, or is swollen until it fills the space of heaven and earth. This is the creature especially preeminent in art, literature and rhetoric. There are nine kinds of dragons, all with various features and functions, and artists and authors ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... means well enough, when I find a thing,' said the Duck: 'it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll

... it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leafits are but half disclos'd, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... assert that the inferiority of man to woman in all work was quite as conspicuous as his rapacity and tyranny in taking to himself all the wages. The Baroness, though addressing a mixed audience, seemed to have no hesitation in speaking of man generally as a foul worm who ought to be put down and kept under, and merely allowed to be the father of children. But after a minute or two Lady George found that she could not understand two words consecutively, although she was close to the lecturer. The Baroness, as she became heated, threw out her words quicker and ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... If you take yourself in hand, in a way you'll understand, to become a Son of Light. On your crassness superimposing the peculiar art of glosing in sleek phrases about Sin. If you aim to be a Shocker, carnal theories to cocker is the best way to begin. And every one will say, As you worm your wicked way, "If that's allowable for him which were criminal in me, What a very emancipated kind of youth this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... your places: ... also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest.... I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig-trees and your olive-trees increased, the palmer worm devoured them.... I have sent among you the pestilence, ... yet have ye not returned unto me, saith ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... her," said my fellow Worm of the car. "I'll just drive her out of the way, where I can look over her a bit when I've snatched something to eat. I'll take the fur rugs inside—you're not to bother, they're big enough to swamp you entirely. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... impossible,—it was a bugbear that must be got out of the heads of free democracies ... and he enlarged on this theme. The night was calm and sweet; all around familiar sounds and sights; the chirp of crickets in the fields, a glow-worm shining in the grass,—delicious perfume of honey-suckle. Far away the noise of a distant train; the little fountain tinkled, and in the moonless sky revolved the luminous track of the light on ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... closed again. A rosy vapor, as from some Tartarean breathing, hovered about the mouths of the furnaces. Moment by moment these mouths opened and belched and closed. It was the fiery respiration of a gigantic beast, of a long worm whose dark body enveloped the smoky city. The beast heaved and panted and rested, again and again—the beast that lay on its belly for many a mile, whose ample stomach was the city, there ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... secretion of the silk-worm, with which it builds its nest or cocoon. This insect was originally brought to Europe from China. Silk, in its chemical nature, is very similar to the hair and wool of animals; whilst in the insect it is a fluid, which is coagulated, apparently by uniting ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... of your drivelling spy, The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe. Nay; torture not the torturer—let him lie: What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe? ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton

... dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when a fish was 'playing' with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... of the early bird, My soul from infancy has stirred, And since the worm I sorely need I'll practise, now, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... company;' and then, all at once, 'O! it is much more respectable to be grave and look wise.' 'He has reversed the Pythagorean discipline, by being first talkative, and then silent. He reverses the course of Nature too: he was first the gay butterfly, and then the creeping worm.' Johnson laughed loud and long at this expansion and illustration of what he ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... poor worm, offend Infinity? And must the terms of peace be given by thee? Then thou art Justice in the last appeal; Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel: And, like a king remote, and weak, must take What satisfaction thou art pleased ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools. Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit, She scorns a pasture withering to the root. She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten. She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. She bellows on a knoll against the sky. Her udder shrivels ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost

... of a North River sloop; a waistcoat and single-breasted jacket of the same material, with a fur cap, completed his attire; but in his hand he bore a large decanter filled with a pale yellowish liquor, embalming a dense mass of fine and worm-like threads, not very different in appearance from ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... where six unruly hairs always persisted in sticking straight out in defiance of patient brushing, wetting, and greasing. Tyler Kamps was as tired as only a boy can be at 9.30 P.M. who has risen at 5.30 A.M. Yet he lay wide awake in his hammock eight feet above the ground, like a giant silk-worm in an incredible cocoon and listened to the sleep-sounds that came from the depths of two hundred similar cocoons suspended at regular intervals down the long dark room. A chorus of deep regular breathing, with an occasional grunt or sigh, denoting complete relaxation. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... something, won't you please," begged the little rabbit. So the old professor bird took out his book and turned over the pages until he came to "The early worm must ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory

... to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door. It led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, but not so spacious, and having only one other little room attached. It was not difficult to divine that the other house was of right the schoolmaster's, and that he had chosen for ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Worm" :   acanthocephalan, nemertine, invertebrate, helminth, chaetognath, annelid, unpleasant person, move, disagreeable person, pogonophoran, nematode, wrench, screw, malevolent program, nemertean, platyhelminth



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