ant

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“
I come now to a mental detail wherein the ant is a long way the superior of any human being.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of various social insects of the family Formicidae, characteristically having wings only in the males and fertile females and living in colonies that have a complex social organization.
  2. idiom ants in (one's) pants Slang A state of restless impatience: "She's got ants in her pants” (Bobbie Ann Mason).

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (13)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Each ant, then, as it comes back in, is contacting other ants. —  Deborah Gordon digs ants
  • The first is that the experience of the ant -- of each ant -- can't be very predictable. —  Deborah Gordon digs ants
  • A person who carries a label ending in -ant is an active performer; a person who carries a label ending in -ee is being acted upon -- most of the time.
  • Suddenly it became a gi-ant, a humongous creature the size of a unicorn. —  Harpy Thyme
  • My obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed import- ant, and for radical good. —  Biographia Literaria
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English amte, from Old English ǣmete.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English ante, ampte, from Middle English amte, amete, from Anglo-Saxon ǣmete, ǣmette (also ēmete, later Middle English emete, emette, emet, English emmet, q. v.) = Old High German āmeiza, MHO. ameize, German ameise (Middle High German also emeze, German emse), ant. Of uncertain origin; perhaps from Anglo-Saxon ā-, English a- (also found accented in Anglo-Saxon ā-cumba, English oakum), + mǣtan (in deriv. mettan, (cut, engrave, hence) paint, depict; cf. metere, a stone-cutter, and G. stein-metz, a stone-cutter) = Old High German meizan, Middle High German meizen, = Icelandic meita, cut. The literally sense would then be ‘the cutter or biter off’; unless the term be taken passively, in a sense like that of Greek ἒντομον or L. insectum, insect, literally ‘cut in.’ The G. form is commonly referred (through Middle High German emeze, German emse) to G. emsig, Middle High German emzic, Old High German emizzig, emazzig, industrious, assiduous, which agrees formally, but not in sense, with Anglo-Saxon œmetig, emtig, English empty, q. v. See mire and pismire.
 

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/ænt/
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