A caterpillar that cuts off by the surface of the ground the young plants of cabbage, melons, maize, etc.; esp. in U.S., the larvæ of species of Agrotis, a genus of moths.
1808–79. Jamieson, Cutworm, a small white grub, which destroys coleworts and other vegetables of this kind, by cutting through the stem near the roots.
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 187. No patching after the cut-worm, or brown grub.
1883. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., vi. 30. Perhaps the most formidable of all [caterpillars] are those called ‘cutworms’ in America, which live beneath the surface of the ground, and eat through the roots of plants.
