Dictionary

worm-eaten en · ADJ

Meanings

1. Of fruit or other food, eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside.
   • Once upon a time there was a lad, who went along a road cracking nuts. He happened to find one which was worm-eaten, and shortly afterwards he met the devil. 1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 36:
2. (broadly, figuratively) Rotten or decrepit.
   • The wooden jetty on the East Pier had become worm-eaten and was demolished, but the Admiralty lent an old hulk to serve as a rough-and-ready packet facility. 1960 May 14, K. A. Murray, “Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire”, in Railway Magazine, page 302:

Forms

Synonyms

maggoty · wormridden

Translations (16)

wa moloné (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · nl wormstekig (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · wa viereus (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · es gusanoso (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · la vermiculatus (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · de wurmstichig (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · fr véreux (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · cs červivý (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · it bacato (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · de madig (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · sv maskäten (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · bg червясал (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · es gusaniento (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · es agusanado (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · kk құрттаған (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside) · fr teigneux (eaten by worms, especially having a worm inside)