[f. WORM v. + -ING1.]
1. a. Extraction of the ‘worm’ or lytta from a dog’s tongue.
1575. Turberv., Faulconrie, 371. The worming doth discharge the Spanell of madnesse and frenesie.
1654. C. Wase, Gratius’ Cyneget., Illustr. 13. To prevent Madnesse by Worming.
1818. Sporting Mag., II. 31. Worming … is most efficatious.
b. slang. (See quot.)
1859. Slang Dict., Worming, removing the beard of an oyster or muscle.
2. The action of ridding (plants, etc.) of ‘worms’ or grubs.
1641. Milton, Animadv. Remonstr. Def., 52. [He] challenges as his right … the clipping of every bush, the weeding and worming of every bed.
1864. De Coin, Cotton & Tobacco, 274. The worming must continue, after the hoeing is done, until the plants are ripe for cutting.
† 3. The practice of a spy or informer. (In quot. attrib.) Obs.
1607. Beaum. & Fl., Woman-Hater, III. iii. Has not many men been raised from this worming trade?
b. The use of insidious methods of progress or advancement.
1916. W. G. FitzGerald, in Nineteenth Cent., Nov., 1074. In the Two Americas, where Deutschtum has, by silent worming, won enormous power all the way from Chicago to the Chilean coast.
4. Angling with worms as bait.
1842. Pulman, Rustic Sk., 48. Zo ’t’s all up wi’ wormin’, an’ huomward da trot Th’ angler, wull pleyz’d wi’ th’ spoort e’ve a-got.
1910. Encycl. Brit., II. 28/1. The other methods of taking trout … are spinning, live-baiting and worming.
1921. Blackw. Mag., Jan., 39/1. When I showed him how to cast the worm up-stream,… he was delighted with this, to him, novel method of worming.
5. The action of catching worms (for bait).
1881. Athenæum, 30 April, 594/2. Worming is an art; the worms are very cunning, and apt to pop back into their holes if the hunter treads heavily.
6. Naut. The process of winding spun-yarn round a rope or cable, so as to fill up the spiral furrows between the strands (cf. WORM v. 13). Also concr., the yarn or line thus used as a filling.
1644. Manwayring, Sea-mans Dict., 116. Worming is the laying of a small-roape, or line alongst, betwixt the strands of a cabell or hawser.
1711. W. Sutherland, Shipbuild. Assist., 120. Lanyards, Ratling, Worming.
1791. Smeaton, Edystone L. (1793), § 137. Not only the service and worming were cut, but the cable itself was … injured by the sharpness of the rocks.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 65. Worming is made of 2 or 3 strands.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 27. The worming is put in the lay.
1897. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ 84. A favourite design is to carve the bone into the similitude of a rope, with ‘worming’ of smaller line along its lays.
7. A worm-like incrustation.
1903. J. Conrad & Hueffer, Romance, V. iii. 425. I knew the feel of every little worming of rust on the iron candlestick.
8. Comb. worming machine (for making screw-threads); worming-pot, a utensil for forming worm-like ornaments on stoneware.
1866. J. Chamberlain, in B’ham & Midl. Hardware Distr., 607. They [sc. screw-blanks] are next carried to the *worming machine.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1017. Common stoneware is coloured by means of two kinds of apparatus; the one called the blowing-pot, the other the *worming-pot.
