Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A shipworm of the genus Teredo.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A lamelli-branch mollusk of the genus Teredo, family Teredinidæ; the ship-worm, T. navalis, conspicuous for the destruction which it occasions to ships and submerged wood, by perforating them in all directions in order to establish a habitation. It is a worm-shaped grayish-white animal, most of whose length is owing to the elongation of the united siphons or breathing-tubes conveying water to the gills. The two valves of the shell are small. The viscera are mainly contained within the valves. In excavating in the wood (the shell is the boring-instrument) every individual is careful to avoid the tube formed by its neighbor, and often a very thin leaf of wood alone is left between the cavities, which are lined with a calcareous incrustation. Many methods are in use to protect ships, piers, etc., from this destructive animal, such as copper sheathing, treating with creosote or corrosive sublimate, or driving numbers of short broad-headed nails into the timber, the rust from which spreads and prevents the animal from settling. It is said to have been originally imported from tropical climates; but it has now become an inhabitant of most harbors, (See also cut under
ship-worm .) T. gigantea is a species found in the East Indies in shallow water, where it bores into the hardened mud. - n. [capitalized] [NL. (Linnæus, 1758).] The typical genus of Teredinidæ, including T. navalis, the common teredo or ship-worm. See def. 1. Also called Septaria.
- n. Any disease in plants produced by the boring of insects.
Wiktionary
- n. zoology A shipworm (of genus Teredo).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A genus of long, slender, wormlike bivalve mollusks which bore into submerged wood, such as the piles of wharves, bottoms of ships, etc.; -- called also
shipworm . See shipworm. SeeIllust. in Appendix.
WordNet 3.0
- n. typical shipworm
Etymologies
- New Latin Terēdō, mollusk genus, from Latin terēdō, a kind of worm, from Greek terēdōn; see terə-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“We have found, however, that a little marine wretch called the teredo attacks hemp so greedily that we've had to invent a new compound wherewith to coat it, namely, ground flint or silica, pitch, and tar, which gives the teredo the toothache, I suppose, for it turns him off effectually.”
The Battery and the Boiler Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
“Around the same time, an invasive worm called the teredo ravaged the docks and pilings along the waterfront, and periodic fires wiped out most of the buildings.”
“This process took years, as the polyethylene glycol soaked into the wood and replaced the fibers of the wood lost to the ocean. unlike many ship wreck the Vasa was not attacked by teredo worms the bane to wooden ships before the advent of affixing a copper bottom.”
“Analysis of the wood revealed that it had been infested by teredo ship worms, which are native to the Caribbean.”
“The wooden pieces consisted of some side planks and a piece of a frame, while the metal pieces included bronze (copper) nails and pieces of the lead sheathing that would have protected the hull below the waterline from the wood-devouring teredo worm and rot.”
“A caterpillar also is engendered in hives, of a species nicknamed the teredo, or ‘borer’, with which creature the bee never interferes.”
“The refitting included covering the wooden hull with copper sheets to protect it from teredo worms and to discourage barnacles and other marine organisms from fouling (and thereby, slowing) the ship.”
“The protection was needed only during the time the caisson was afloat and before it was entirely submerged below the riverbed, where the sea worm, the teredo, never penetrates.”
“It was expected that the double solution, by forming an insoluble compound, would prove an effective protection against the _teredo_.”
“This merely confirms the general conclusion which has been stated under the head of creosoting, that nothing but the impregnation with creosote, and plenty of it, is an effectual protection against the _teredo_.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘teredo’.
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Russian Doll Words
A Russian Doll word is a word that, when you remove the first and last letters, is either the empty string, or a Russian Doll word. These are all of the 6 or more letter Russian Doll words found in...
waspiness, upraisers, strainers, sporangia, raspiness, prelatess, methanals, gaspiness, washings, uprisers, upraises, upraiser and 2373 more...
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molluscs
very comprehensive list
of molluscs,who does not like
calamari? hmm yum
molluscigerous
100,000 species just in molluscsabalone, ammonite, argonaut, ataata, belon, bivalve, blackhead, bluepoint, brachiopod, buckie, byssal, byssus and 271 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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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 320 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for teredo.
chained_bear Another usage: "Even when the water was less volatile it could be a great nuisance. It rusted ships' metals; it was host to teredo worms and other small creatures that feasted on wood, even copper. Something was always eating at Somers."
—Buckner F. Melton, Jr., A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers (New York and London: Free Press, 2003), 65. Apr 25, 2009
chained_bear see iron sickness for a usage. May 1, 2008