hookworm
any of certain bloodsucking nematode worms, as Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, parasitic in the intestine of humans and other animals.
Also called hookworm disease . a disease caused by hookworms, which may enter the body by ingestion or through the skin of the feet or legs, causing abdominal pain, nausea, and, if untreated, severe anemia.
Origin of hookworm
1Other words from hookworm
- hookwormy, adjective
Words Nearby hookworm
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use hookworm in a sentence
The type of hookworm infecting Loukas can live in his body for many years, but its eggs can’t hatch there.
How wriggling, blood-eating parasitic worms alter the body | Kathryn Hulick | November 3, 2022 | Science News For StudentsAmong better known ones are tapeworms, hookworms, lice and ticks.
Living mysteries: This critter has 38 times more DNA than you do | Douglas Fox | September 29, 2022 | Science News For StudentsAccording to Mejia, warming in the Southeast has doubled the length of the infectious season for parasites such as hookworm, whose larvae hatch in warm, moist soils and infiltrate humans through bare feet.
Probably none are so infected with spiritual hookworm as the immigrants from Naples.
The Old World in the New | Edward Alsworth RossVinegar eels, the horsehair worm, the pork worm or trichina and the dread hookworm are examples.
A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
The people, largely farmers, become infected with a larval stage of the hookworm, which develops in moist earth.
A Civic Biology | George William HunterThe hookworm, deadly as an asp, has got you in its loathsome grasp!
Uncle Walt [Walt Mason] | Walt MasonBut I will break the hookworm lose, and cook its everlasting goose!
Uncle Walt [Walt Mason] | Walt Mason
British Dictionary definitions for hookworm
/ (ˈhʊkˌwɜːm) /
any parasitic blood-sucking nematode worm of the family Ancylostomatidae, esp Ancylostoma duodenale or Necator americanus, both of which cause disease. They have hooked mouthparts and enter their hosts by boring through the skin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for hookworm
[ huk′wûrm′ ]
Any of numerous small, parasitic nematode worms of the family Ancylostomatidae, having hooked mouthparts with which they fasten themselves to the intestinal walls of various animals, including humans.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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