woodworm

plural woodworms

1. countableuncountableAny of many beetle larvae that bore into wood.

   His father met a man who said that he had the figure from a ship which went aground near Blackwater Head. It would have to be treated for woodworm, he said.

   1992, Colm Tóibín, chapter 2, in The Heather Blazing, Penguin, published 1994, page 25

   3 more examples

   1599, Simon Harward, “A Displaying of the wilfull deuises of wicked and vaine worldlings” in Three Sermons, London: Richard Johns, […] Chrisostome doth compaire enuie to the wood worm which though it doe breede in the tymber, yet it doth consume & waste the tymber, as enuie springing of the heart doth putrifie and vtterly eat vp the heart.

   1872, Robert Louis Stevenson, letter to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson dated July 29, 1872, in Sidney Colvin (editor), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, New York: Scribner, 1917, Volume I, p. 45, There was only one contretemps during the whole interview—the arrival of another visitor, in the shape (surely) the last of God’s creatures, a wood-worm of the most unnatural and hideous appearance, with one great striped horn stucking out of his nose like a boltsprit. If there are many wood-worms in Germany, I shall come home.

   New Alresford is constantly mispronounced, T-shaped, honeycombed with cellars, packed with antique shops, riddled with woodworm, surrounded by watercress. The name - which means 'ford by the alders' - is pronounced 'Allsford'; and no one ever uses 'New', though they do call the adjoining village Old Alresford.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 144

   1. countableuncountableparticularlyAnobium punctatum (common furniture beetle).

      Synonyms: furniture beetle

2. countableuncountableA shipworm, a worm-like mollusk in the family Teredinidae that feeds on wood underwater in saltwater.