muckworm
Americannoun
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(not in technical use) the larva of any of several insects, as the dung beetle, which lives in or beneath manure.
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a miser.
noun
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any larva or worm that lives in mud
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informal a miser
Etymology
Origin of muckworm
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The city muckworm, who Prom peacock orient, scarce could tell a cock Of hay!
From The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe by James Parton
If my conjectures are right, the threats of the old muckworm father have shaken the crazy nerves of the baronet; and I half suspect there is something more of meaning at the bottom of this.
From Anna St. Ives by Thomas Holcroft
But alas, the stir, the scramble, the mad whirl of city life, the debasing contact with low material minds, the daily study of Prices Current, make even of me a muckworm.
From A Pessimist In Theory and Practice by Frederic Mayer Bird
The muckworm is no longer a creeping thing; it rears its head aloft, and makes the haughty borough-lords sneak about in holes and corners.'...
From Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-1823 by David Ricardo
The "muckworm" Cottington, as Browning calls him, suggested the sentence which was carried out.
From Browning's England A Study in English Influences in Browning by Helen Archibald Clarke
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
