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Earwig   Listen
noun
Earwig  n.  
1.
(Zoöl.) Any insect of the genus Forficula and related genera, belonging to the order Dermaptera (formerly Euplexoptera). They have elongated bodies and a prominent pair of curved pincers at the rear of their abdomen.
2.
(Zoöl.) In America, any small chilopodous myriapod, esp. of the genus Geophilus. See Geophilus Note: Both insects are so called from the supposition that they creep into the human ear.
3.
A whisperer of insinuations; a secret counselor.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Earwig" Quotes from Famous Books



... forthwith He ventures boldly on the pith Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sagg And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag: Gladding his palate with some store Of emmets' eggs; what would he more? But beards of mice, a newt's stewed thigh, A bloated earwig and a fly; With the red-capp'd worm that's shut Within the concave of a nut, Brown as his tooth. A little moth Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth: With withered cherries, mandrakes' ears, Moles' eyes; to these the slain stag's tears The unctuous ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... servants, orphans, and adopted children, who could be easily accommodated by putting up fresh grass huts, to which even the Europeans of the party had become so accustomed, that they viewed a chameleon tumbling down on the dinner-table with rather more indifference than we do the intrusion of an earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor when the white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being found in the Archdeacon's whiskers, and green snakes, instead of mice, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... quite out in the great world, on the other side of the ditch," answered an earwig, "I hope none of my children will ever go so far, it would be ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... hot suns. Better the North Pole than a plague of locusts. We fear the tarantula and have no love for the tse-tse fly. The insects of our own climate are bad enough in all conscience. The grasshopper, they say, is a murderer, and, though the earwig is a perfect mother, other insects, such as the burying-beetle, have the reputation of parricides, But, dangerous or not, the insects are for the most part teasers and destroyers. The greenfly makes its ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... gable," hissed Licorice between her closed teeth. "I know thee, Bruno de Malpas, thou vile grandson of a locust! Nay, locust is too good for thee: they are clean beasts, and thou art an unclean. Thou hare, camel, coney, night-hawk, raven, lobster, earwig, hog! I spit on thee seven times,"— and she did it—"I deliver thee over to ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... come back again; my skull is a Grub-street attic to let,—-not so much as a joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are cut off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, colic, toothache—-an earwig{} * in my auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life,—-the sharper the more evidence of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an obstinate cold, a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody



Words linked to "Earwig" :   Dermaptera, Forficula auricularia



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