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• white ant
  white ant

  noun

  termite.
• white-ant
  white-ant

  verb (used with object)

  to undermine or subvert from within.

white ant

¹ American  

noun

1. termite.

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white-ant ² American  

[hwahyt-ant, wahyt-] / ˈʰwaɪtˌænt, ˈwaɪt- /

verb (used with object)

Australian Informal.

1. to undermine or subvert from within.

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white ant British  

noun

1. another name for termite

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Etymology

Origin of white ant¹

First recorded in 1675–85

Origin of white-ant²

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Oddly enough, this tribal art owes much of its vitality to the wood-eating white ant of Africa.

From Time Magazine Archive

Instantly a white ant was seen to appear through the opening thus made, apparently surveying the damage done.

From In the Wilds of Africa by Pearse, Alfred

Ants, especially the white ant, pay frequent visits to the house, but the worst scourge of all is the ravenous bedbug.

From The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir by Garvan, John M.

It is extensively used for cabinet making and carving, and is not readily attacked by the white ant.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XLIII, 1670-1700 by Various

You can tell infallibly the points of the compass from the mounds of this white ant, which has been called the “meridian termite.”

From Peeps At Many Lands: Australia by Spence, Percy F. S. (Percy Frederick Seaton)