Worm, n.

In common usage, any small creeping animal, or reptile, either entirely without feet, or with very short ones, including a great variety of animals of different classes and orders, viz. certain small serpents, as the blind-worm or slow-worm; the larvas of insects, viz. grubs, caterpillars and maggots, as the wood-worm, canker-worm, silk-worm, (the larva of a moth which spins the filaments of which silk is made,) the grub that injures corn, grass, &c., the worms that breed in putrid flesh, the bots in the stomach of horses, and many others; certain wingless insects, as the glow-worm; the intestinal worms, or such as breed in the cavities and organs of living animals, as the tape-worm, the round-worm, the fluke, &c.; and numerous animals found in the earth, and in water, particularly in the sea, as the earth-worm or lumbricus, the hair-worm or gordius, the teredo, or worm that bores in to the bottom of ships, &c.