Dictionary

antlike en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *āmaitijā Old English ǣmete Middle English ampte English ant Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-West Germanic *-līk Old English -līċ Middle English -like English -like English antlike From ant + -like.

Meanings

1. Resembling an ant. Often used specifically in reference to apparent size or significance.
   • On the flat behind the mill, dawn-rising Chinamen shogged with nimble bare feet under their yoke-linked watering-cans. These busy brethren, meeting sometimes on the same narrow track, would pause, ant-like, seemingly to dumbly regard one another and their burdens, then, still ant-like, pass silently to their work. 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 147:
   • Standing, almost antlike, in the middle of Franco Zeffirelli ’s oversize set for “La Bohème,” however, he pushed uncomfortably. 2007 April 5, Bernard Holland, “The Met Shows Off Its Hits and Misses”, in New York Times:

Forms

Translations (2)

sv myrlik (resembling an ant or ants) · pt formiguento (resembling an ant or ants)