a. and adv.
A. adj. Resembling a worm in structure, form, movement, etc.; vermiform.
1721. Bailey, s.v. Valvula major,… the foremost Worm-like Process of the Cerebellum.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., I. 173. The whole body of the water then is found replete with little worm-like insects.
1854. Poultry Chron., I. 77. A strange spiral, or worm-like, motion.
1868. W. Cory, Lett. & Jrnls. (1897), 218. A dreadful fat worm-like black thing with onions…; it was lamprey.
1885. Guide Mammalia Brit. Mus., 50. The Ant-eaters have narrow heads with long snouts, to accommodate their enormously long worm-like tongues.
b. fig. (Cf. WORM sb. 13.)
1805. Wordsw., Prelude, XI. 252. I … wished that Man Should start out of his earthy, worm-like state, And spread abroad the wings of Liberty.
1877. Gladstone, Diary, 7 May, in Morley, Life, II. VII. iv. 565. Never did I feel weaker and more wormlike.
B. adv. After the manner of a worm.
1813. Byron, Corsair, I. xiv. That heart hath long been changed; Worm-like ’twas trampled, adder-like avenged.
1841. Browning, Pippa Passes, III. A pale wretch … Who through some chink had pushed and pressed, On knees and elbows, belly and breast, Worm-like into the temple.
