"witworm" meaning in All languages combined

See witworm on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: witworms [plural]
Etymology: wit + worm Etymology templates: {{compound|en|wit|worm}} wit + worm Head templates: {{en-noun}} witworm (plural witworms)
  1. (obsolete) One who, or that which, feeds on wit (possibly destroying it). Tags: obsolete
    Sense id: en-witworm-en-noun-kh8jUaVT Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for witworm meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wit",
        "3": "worm"
      },
      "expansion": "wit + worm",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "wit + worm",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "witworms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "witworm (plural witworms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1824, Theodore Sedgwick Fay, “Editorial Miseries”, in The New York Mirror",
          "text": "Sentimental misses long for poetry— dandies crave the latest fashions— politicasters fatten on battles and revolutions— witworms want anecdotes— censors snap at editorial paragraphs— gossips devour scandal— merchants derive sustenance from ship-news, and hypochondriacs from death— old maids and bachelors smack their labia over the marriages — weather-wises look out for squalls, and pinchfists and pickpockets for the state of stocks — and so on cum multis aliis — ad infinitum.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1827, Hilary Quality, edited by D. Wyseman, The Quality Papers, page 158",
          "text": "\"By the flesh-hook of Satan!\" cried I, \"thou are as merry a witworm as ever waged war against dumpishness. […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1847 March 7, “Wit and Humor”, in The Yale Literary Magazine, volumes 12-13, page 225",
          "text": "Such a course, however, when a neighbor is at hand, with leisure, and of the same spirit, would be recommendable to none, save only to those witlings, and witsnappers, and witworms, whose jests, though highly appreciable to themselves, will not pass current among the throng.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, Heathcote Williams, Hancock's Last Half Hour, page 19",
          "text": "... the calembour, the scintillating jokesmith and jesting witworm who sets the table in a roar, and lays them in the aisles.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Bernadette McCarver Snyder, 130 Fun Facts from God's Wonder-Filled World, page 142",
          "text": "Oh, yes, you must definitely be a witworm!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, David Stacton, People of the Book",
          "text": "What would he do were he confronted not with an example, but with the thing itself? Turn to a powder, like any other witworm? Oxenstierna had small use for scholars.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who, or that which, feeds on wit (possibly destroying it)."
      ],
      "id": "en-witworm-en-noun-kh8jUaVT",
      "links": [
        [
          "wit",
          "wit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) One who, or that which, feeds on wit (possibly destroying it)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "witworm"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wit",
        "3": "worm"
      },
      "expansion": "wit + worm",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "wit + worm",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "witworms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "witworm (plural witworms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English compound terms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1824, Theodore Sedgwick Fay, “Editorial Miseries”, in The New York Mirror",
          "text": "Sentimental misses long for poetry— dandies crave the latest fashions— politicasters fatten on battles and revolutions— witworms want anecdotes— censors snap at editorial paragraphs— gossips devour scandal— merchants derive sustenance from ship-news, and hypochondriacs from death— old maids and bachelors smack their labia over the marriages — weather-wises look out for squalls, and pinchfists and pickpockets for the state of stocks — and so on cum multis aliis — ad infinitum.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1827, Hilary Quality, edited by D. Wyseman, The Quality Papers, page 158",
          "text": "\"By the flesh-hook of Satan!\" cried I, \"thou are as merry a witworm as ever waged war against dumpishness. […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1847 March 7, “Wit and Humor”, in The Yale Literary Magazine, volumes 12-13, page 225",
          "text": "Such a course, however, when a neighbor is at hand, with leisure, and of the same spirit, would be recommendable to none, save only to those witlings, and witsnappers, and witworms, whose jests, though highly appreciable to themselves, will not pass current among the throng.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, Heathcote Williams, Hancock's Last Half Hour, page 19",
          "text": "... the calembour, the scintillating jokesmith and jesting witworm who sets the table in a roar, and lays them in the aisles.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Bernadette McCarver Snyder, 130 Fun Facts from God's Wonder-Filled World, page 142",
          "text": "Oh, yes, you must definitely be a witworm!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, David Stacton, People of the Book",
          "text": "What would he do were he confronted not with an example, but with the thing itself? Turn to a powder, like any other witworm? Oxenstierna had small use for scholars.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who, or that which, feeds on wit (possibly destroying it)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wit",
          "wit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) One who, or that which, feeds on wit (possibly destroying it)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "witworm"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.