worm-eaten
Americanadjective
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eaten into or gnawed by worms.
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impaired by time, decayed or antiquated.
adjective
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eaten into by worms
a worm-eaten table
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decayed; rotten
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old-fashioned; antiquated
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of worm-eaten
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.
Sailors on a secret wartime mission had already dealt with typhus, lice, blinding squalls, frostbite, worm-eaten biscuits, scurvy and the death of comrades since they set sail months earlier.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall!
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2022
Even in the throes of syphilis, Oswald seems more Barrymore-bitten here than what Ibsen memorably describes with the French word “vermoulu”: worm-eaten.
From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2019
A woman peeling off her beautiful white mask to reveal the grotesque, worm-eaten visage within.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2018
At her forecastle stood a grotesque figurehead, some worm-eaten wooden eminence with a constipated look and a scroll tucked up under one arm.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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.
