[f. SOW sb.1 5 a.] a. A wood-louse of the genus Oniscus, esp. O. asellus. b. U.S. A small marine crustacean of the genus Idotea.
1750. W. Ellis, Country Housew. Comp., 157. Sow-bug or Wood-louse.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., iv. (1818), I. 141. He recommends to his credulous patient to take a certain number of sow-bugs per diem.
1851. Beck’s Florist, 41. One of the pits, that was full of sow-bugs.
1883. C. F. Holder, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 186/1. The common sow-bug (idotæa) often illumines the crevices and sea-weeds along our shores.
