antlike

A1N1T1L1I1K5E1

adjective

Resembling an ant. Often used specifically in reference to apparent size or significance.

Scrabble 11

Meanings

adjectiveantlike (comparative more antlike, superlative most antlike)

comparative more antlike · superlative most antlike

  1. Resembling an ant. Often used specifically in reference to apparent size or significance.

    Standing, almost antlike, in the middle of Franco Zeffirelli ’s oversize set for “La Bohème,” however, he pushed uncomfortably.

    2007 April 5, Bernard Holland, “The Met Shows Off Its Hits and Misses”, in New York Times
    1 more example

    On the flat behind the mill, dawn-rising Chinamen shogged with nimble bare feet under their yoke-linked watering-cans. These busy brethren, meeting sometimes on the same narrow track, would pause, ant-like, seemingly to dumbly regard one another and their burdens, then, still ant-like, pass silently to their work.

    1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 147

Origin

  1. Proto-West Germanic*āmaitijā
  2. Old Englishǣmete
  3. Middle Englishampte
  4. Englishant
  5. Proto-Indo-European*leyg-
  6. Proto-Germanic*līką
  7. Englishantlike

From ant + -like.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Portuguese formiguento
  • formiguentoresembling an ant or ants
Swedish myrlik
  • myrlikresembling an ant or ants

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

antlike. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike

MLA

“antlike.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “antlike,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike.

Source: antlike on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.