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
A woman peeling off her beautiful white mask to reveal the grotesque, worm-eaten visage within.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2018
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 ● Apr. 18, 2017
Tucked down in the bottom, wrapped in a leftover piece of paper, is a single worm-eaten faerie fruit I picked up on the way home.
From "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
