nonce-wd. [-SHIP.] The personality of a worm. (With possess. pron., as a mock-title.)
1648. J. Beaumont, Psyche, V. cxlix. Vain Son of Dust pull down thy foolish Crest, And in this Glasse thy feeble Wormship see.
1652. Benlowes, Theophila, II. xviii. Now serves our Guiltiness, as winding sheet To wrap up Lepers; Cover meet; While thus stern vengeance does our Worships sadly greet.
1775. S. J. Pratt, Liberal Opin., cxxxiv. (1783), IV. 217. A dead man being … property under the earth; so that … as the property properly belonged only to the worms, the matter ought to be submitted to their worshipful wormships.
