Meanings
comparative more antlike · superlative most antlike
- 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 Times1 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
- Proto-West Germanic*āmaitijā
- Old Englishǣmete
- Middle Englishampte
- Englishant
- Proto-Indo-European*leyg-
- Proto-Germanic*līką
- Englishantlike
Translations
Portuguese formiguento
- formiguentoresembling an ant or ants
Swedish myrlik
- myrlikresembling an ant or ants
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
antlike. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike
“antlike.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “antlike,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antlike.
Source: antlike on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.