Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any wormlike insect larva, as of certain beetles, that lives and grows in manure.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A worm that lives in muck.
- n. A miser; one who scrapes together money by mean devices.
Wiktionary
- n. A larva living in mud or manure.
- n. Someone who gathers wealth through overwork of employees and sordid means; a miser.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A larva or grub that lives in muck or manure; -- applied to the larvæ of the tumbledung and allied beetles.
- n. One who scrapes together money by mean labor and devices; a miser.
Etymologies
- muck + worm (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The levellers, whose muckworm minds, and love of the arts is only shown in that of money-getting -- maintained that the demolition of the”
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 19, No. 534, February 18, 1832
“In that he lied like the muckworm that he is," I exclaimed.”
“You're a foul thing -- a muckworm -- Sir Rowland," added Trenchard amiably, "and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven forgive you -- I can't.”
“Armed with a bodkin and a barker he rushes and tushes his way through life, slitting weasands and dubbing every cully he meets a muckworm in the pleasant idiom current (so I take it on faith) in the time of our second JAMES.”
“But alas, the stir, the scramble, the mad whirl of city life, the debasing contact with low material minds, the daily study of Prices Current, make even of me a muckworm.”
“The fisherman, meanwhile, stands in three feet of water, under the same summer's sun, arbitrating in other cases between muckworm and shiner, amid the fragrance of water-lilies, mint, and pontederia, leading his life many rods from the dry land, within a pole's length of where the larger fishes swim.”
“If my conjectures are right, the threats of the old muckworm father have shaken the crazy nerves of the baronet; and I half suspect there is something more of meaning at the bottom of this.”
“Federalist muckworm, poxy Democrat, and drop that forge bar.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘muckworm’.
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Gapeseeds and Muckworms - Compound De...
A list of compound derogatory names such as gapeseed, muckworm and lickspittle. Your one-word contributions to this list are welcome.
See sionnach's list derogatory terms I should use ...gapeseed, muckworm, lickspittle, makeweight, bootlicker, backscratcher, apple-polisher, backslapper, brownnoser, rakeshame, yesman, freeloader and 293 more...
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WF - nominal compounds (figurative)
An extensive list I have been working on for quite some time. Feel free to add more of the kind if you miss any.
brainstorming, upside, downside, goldplating, bikeshedding, mudslinging, downgrading, headhunter, streamlining, mainstreaming, gerrymandering, frontloading and 503 more...
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The Worm List
List of all things wormy.
hookworm, earworm, roundworm, corn earworm, bollworm, pinworm, whipworm, earthworm, heartworm, polychete, teredo, lugworm and 54 more...
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Gems from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulg...
Citation: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, unabridged from the original 1811 edition, with a foreword by Max Harris. London: Bibliophile Books, 1984.
Original title page: A Dictio...tuzzy-muzzy, half seas over, hugger mugger, hugotontheonbiqui..., doodle sack, juniper lecture, kate, kent street eject..., jack ketch, davy, abel-wackets, three-legged mare and 370 more...
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