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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

See Examples For:

white ant white-ant

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

And yet the white ant can never procure any food until it comes above ground.

From Library of the World's Best literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 12 by Various

What strikes you at first about the white ant is that you never see it unless you lay its works open.

From From Edinburgh to India & Burmah by W. G. (William Gordon) Burn Murdoch

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 Percy F. S. (Percy Frederick Seaton) Spence

Some Chinese love earthworm broth, and Zanzibaris feast on white-ant pie; the French have been known to eat eels with sea-urchin-gonad sauce, and some Hawaiians have a taste for broiled puppy.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 18, 2019

The tent, protected by the white-ant hillock and the giant tree-trunk, stood yet, but the first strong buffet of the whirlwind might pull out the ropes and carry it the Lord knows where.

From In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz

In the same spirit his companions speak of their white-ant existence without a shade of complaint.

From War by Pierre Loti

I took my position behind a white-ant hill in front of a stream which rippled in a hollow about forty yards beneath me.

From Ismailia by Sir Samuel White Baker

Their advanced scouts approached warily in the dark, but long before they had reached the sentries, they passed within a few feet of a party of guards concealed behind a white-ant hill.

From Ismailia by Sir Samuel White Baker