Meanings
- no pluralThe means by which ants communicate with each other, analogous to the TCP/IP algorithm that the internet uses to control the flow of data.
Long before researchers invented the Internet, ants invented something kind of like an anternet, and the two networks work pretty much the same way.
2012, The Ant Internet, IEEE Spectrum1 more example
2013, Stanford course explores social networking in the 18th century – and in nature, Stanford News She and Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of electrical engineering and of computer science, last year published a paper showing that the ants' "anternet" algorithm follows the same rules as the protocols that regulate data traffic congestion on the Internet.
Origin
Blend of ant + internet. Coined by Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
anternet. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anternet
“anternet.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anternet. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “anternet,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anternet.
Source: anternet on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.