Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A mound of soil, sand, or dirt formed by ants or termites in digging or building a nest.
Wiktionary
- n. A cone-shaped formation constructed from sediment and other available materials by ants or termites. The colony nests underneath this cone.
Etymologies
- From Middle English ametehul, from Old English ǣmethyll ("anthill"), equivalent to ant + hill. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Each ant in an anthill is doing this or that, but the anthill itself is doing something else. cogito, ergo Mixner non sum Says:”
“Now maybe a thousand kilometers away from our anthill is another anthill.”
Vatican Holds Conference on Extraterrestrial Life | Universe Today
“Not all of the faceless residents of the "anthill" are as lucky as Huang.”
“Haunted by memories of the terrible mistake that drove him to this island and away from a successful career as a surgeon, he lives in a stasis so complete an anthill grows undisturbed in his living room.”
“Driving for three hours was like knocking over an anthill and daring a hundred little creatures to gnaw on my nerve endings.”
“Her forehead was swelling like an anthill, with beads of blood flowing out of it instead of insects.”
“Walking up stairs, timing cooking, running up an "anthill" hill all take focus and adjusting too.”
“The endless creativity of the human animal is one of the differences between us and a chimpanzee poking sticks into an anthill in search of a juicy meal.”
“After all, some affinity is required to feel you understand where someone is coming from when a commentary on song titles involves a discourse on the variety of ants in the world and one ant taking over a neighboring anthill by asking an existential question.”
A Progressive on the Prairie » A visit from an old friend » Print
“All you have to do is poke the anthill with a stick.”
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘anthill’.
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Looks like a digraph, but isn't
mishap, mishear, boathouse, courthouse, chophouse, ungainly, anthill, pothole, haphazard, upholstery, hothead, upheaval and 16 more...
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Northern Territory
The Northern Territory of Australia. Suggestions welcome.
win-a-croc, angurugu, intervention, mala, qantas, ochre, nitmiluk, the ghan, wet season, dry season, nyinyikay, dragonfly and 94 more...
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Quenelles of Random Palavery
More randomly-garnered terms from the world of words that don't quite yet fit into my other lists.
Goddidit, barcelona, filigrain, good-natured, ill-natured, half-bit, endosome, underplaying, parotid, denormalization, sleightgeist, wheezing and 2334 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for anthill.
hernesheir "After the Indian camp has broken up and moved away, many Indian beads can usually be found on the outside of the anthills." Ants Ornamenting Their Homes, St. Nicholas: a Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls, Volume 27, Part 1, p. 549, 1900. Mar 8, 2011
hernesheir Regarding the fossil evidence of dinosaur-age mammals found in anthills: "It has been found that in addition to ordinary sand-grains certain of the anthills also contain fossils, tiny teeth, bone fragments, and in rare instances perfect bones that the ants had unconsciously collected and have been the source of much of our knowledge of smaller forms which were contemporaneous with the larger reptiles." - Popular Science Monthly, September, 1915, p. 241. Mar 8, 2011
vanishedone I can't decide whether or not the two WeirdNet definitions contradict each other; I suppose it depends on the definition of natural. Sep 23, 2008