angleworm

English

WOTD – 22 August 2015

Alternative forms

• angle worm, angle-worm

Etymology

From angle +‎ worm.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæŋ.ɡəlˌwɜɹm/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

angleworm (plural angleworms)

1. (Northern US) An earthworm, used as or destined to be used as bait to catch fish.
   • a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “In the Garden”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 140:

     A bird came down the walk : / He did not know I saw ; / He bit an angle-worm in halves / And ate the fellow, raw.

   • 1898, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Precipitate Cock and the Unappreciated Pearl:

     He turned again to where his clan
     In one astounding tangle
     With eager haste together ran
     To slay the helpless angle

Translations

worm used as bait

Finnish: onkimato, onkiliero Russian: червя́к для нажи́вки m (červják dlja nažívki) Turkish: olta solucanı

See also

• nightcrawler
• red wiggler

Anagrams

• Low German, lawmonger