pillworm

plural pillworms · alternative pill worm · alternative pill-worm

1. rareAny myriapod which rolls up for protection; a galleyworm.

   The PILLWORM is restless, aggressive, and nearly as destructive as, though more sophisticated than, the APHID.

   1961, African Violet Magazine, volume 15, page 71

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   Another one (Armadillo rugulosus) is endowed with the power of rolling itself up in a ball like the "pill-worm" of the Old Country

   1904, Alexander Bathgate, Dunedin and Its Neighbourhood: A Short Account of Its ..., page 68

   Objects of the Scheme:—(1) To produce intra hissutum and hissutum barbadense hybrids (F₁₁) possessing resistance to blackarm, red leaf blight and pillworm besides having economic and agronomic values and suitable for growing as such or by budding on perennial of stocks.

   1956, Mysore Agricultural Calendar and Year Book, Mysore (India:State). Dept. of Agriculture, page 151

   The high beach inhabitants include different kinds of periwinkles, a burrowing worm called the pill worm, and the beach hoppers that often parade along the beach in great numbers in early morning or twilight.

   1972, Irwin Stambler, Shorelines of America, page 37

   an event which happened years earlier had eaten away at the parish in his charge as a pillworm eats at a plant.

   1984, Suzanne Morris, Galveston, page 408