"woolly bear" meaning in English

See woolly bear in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: woolly bears [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} woolly bear (plural woolly bears)
  1. (colloquial) A hairy caterpillar. Tags: colloquial Translations (hairy caterpillar): behaarde rups [common-gender] (Dutch), Haarraupe [feminine] (German), haarige Raupe [feminine] (German), behaarte Raupe [feminine] (German), björnspinnarlarv (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-woolly_bear-en-noun-zETMpuTD Disambiguation of 'hairy caterpillar': 94 4 2
  2. Specifically, the larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae. Translations (larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae): chenille hérissonne [feminine] (French), Bärenspinnerraupe [feminine] (German)
    Sense id: en-woolly_bear-en-noun-tOcNQck7 Disambiguation of 'larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae': 7 92 0
  3. (military slang, historical) An explosive shell that gives out dense smoke when it bursts. Tags: historical, slang Categories (lifeform): Baby animals, Noctuoid moths Translations (explosive shell): fumigène [masculine] (French)
    Sense id: en-woolly_bear-en-noun-b6uzvRky Disambiguation of Baby animals: 10 10 80 Disambiguation of Noctuoid moths: 18 14 67 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Dutch translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Swedish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 2 86 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 15 4 81 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 11 6 83 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 6 5 89 Disambiguation of Terms with Dutch translations: 18 5 77 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 17 4 79 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 16 6 78 Disambiguation of Terms with Swedish translations: 19 12 69 Topics: government, military, politics, war Disambiguation of 'explosive shell': 0 0 100
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: woolly worm, wooly bear

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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        "A hairy caterpillar."
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        "(colloquial) A hairy caterpillar."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "94 4 2",
          "code": "nl",
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          "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "behaarde rups"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 4 2",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Haarraupe"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 4 2",
          "code": "de",
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          "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "haarige Raupe"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 4 2",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "behaarte Raupe"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 4 2",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
          "word": "björnspinnarlarv"
        }
      ]
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      "id": "en-woolly_bear-en-noun-tOcNQck7",
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          "Arctiidae#Translingual"
        ]
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      "translations": [
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          "_dis1": "7 92 0",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae",
          "tags": [
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          ],
          "word": "chenille hérissonne"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "7 92 0",
          "code": "de",
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          "word": "Bärenspinnerraupe"
        }
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          "_dis": "17 4 79",
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          "_dis": "16 6 78",
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          "_dis": "19 12 69",
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        },
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          "kind": "lifeform",
          "langcode": "en",
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          "orig": "en:Baby animals",
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          "_dis": "18 14 67",
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          "ref": "1929, Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune, Vintage, published 2014, page 236:",
          "text": "As Bourne came out, he could see shells exploding by the dump, with some shrapnel bursting, woolly-bears they called them, overhead.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
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          "ref": "2000, Harold A Skaarup, Whiz Bangs and Woolly Bears, page 12:",
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        }
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        "(military slang, historical) An explosive shell that gives out dense smoke when it bursts."
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          "_dis1": "0 0 100",
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      "_dis1": "53 16 30",
      "word": "wooly bear"
    }
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        "government",
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      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "behaarde rups"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Haarraupe"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "haarige Raupe"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "behaarte Raupe"
    },
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      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "hairy caterpillar",
      "word": "björnspinnarlarv"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "chenille hérissonne"
    },
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      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "larva of a moth of the family Arctiidae",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Bärenspinnerraupe"
    },
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      "code": "fr",
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      "sense": "explosive shell",
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      "word": "fumigène"
    }
  ],
  "word": "woolly bear"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.