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wyrm

Pronunciation: /wyrm/

“wyrm” is an Old English word. Its 8 meanings in English:

noun

  1. any crawling animal, especially
  2. worm
  3. maggot, grub
  4. insect
  5. Exeter Book, riddle 40
  6. reptile, especially a snake
  7. late 9th century, translation of Orosius’ History Against the Pagans
  8. dragon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *wurmi, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (“worm, serpent, snake”), from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis (“worm”). Cognate with Old Frisian wirm, Old Saxon wurm, Old High German wurm, Old Norse ormr, and Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌼𐍃 (waurms). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin vermis (“worm”), Lithuanian varmas (“midge”), Old East Slavic вермие (vermije, “locusts, worms”), and…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.