carpenter ant

noun

a black or brown ant of the genus Camponotus that nests in the wood of decaying or dead trees in which it bores tunnels for depositing its eggs.

Origin of carpenter ant

First recorded in 1880–85

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for carpenter ant

Historical Examples of carpenter ant

The carpenter-ant has no moral sense, and is not amenable either to kindness or blows.
Falling in Love
Grant Allen
Among these are the two large species of carpenter-ant before mentioned, which work in stumps or fallen timber.
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878
Various
One kind of carpenter-ant covers its walls with a mixture of sawdust, earth, and spiders' webs.
The Adventures of a Grain of Dust
Hallam Hawksworth