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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

The termite or white ant is a small insect, with a bloated, yellowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped, and colored a disagreeable oily brown.

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

The flabby, tallow-like body makes this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm countries.

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

But the white ant is by far the most pernicious kind, and a real curse to the country.

From Impressions of South Africa by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount

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

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

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 Baker, Samuel White, Sir

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

From War by Loti, Pierre

Each hut was surrounded by a small court composed of cement made from the clay of the white-ant hills mixed with cow-dung and smeared with ashes: these courts were always kept scrupulously clean.

From Ismailia by Baker, Samuel White, Sir

Fortunately every few score of paces there stood white-ant hillocks, sometimes between ten and twenty feet high.

From In Desert and Wilderness by Sienkiewicz, Henryk