worm-eaten

American  

[wurm-eet-n] / ˈwɜrmˌit n /

adjective

1. eaten into or gnawed by worms.

2. impaired by time, decayed or antiquated.

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worm-eaten British  

adjective

1. eaten into by worms

   a worm-eaten table

2. decayed; rotten

3. old-fashioned; antiquated

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Other Word Forms

• unworm-eaten adjective

Etymology

Origin of worm-eaten

1350–1400; Middle English wormeten; worm, eat, -en ³

Example Sentences

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

A woman peeling off her beautiful white mask to reveal the grotesque, worm-eaten visage within.

From Los Angeles Times

He pushed on the main door with his shoulder and the worm-eaten wooden frame fell down noiselessly amid a dull cataclysm of dust and termite nests.

From Literature

Lowell could not hear “the closing of the heavy wooden door” of his church without thinking of “the shutting of the worm-eaten door of Hamlet’s cell, four hundred miles to the south.”

From Washington Post

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 Literature