worm

noun

1. Zoology. any of numerous long, slender, soft-bodied, legless, bilaterally symmetrical invertebrates, including the flatworms, roundworms, acanthocephalans, nemerteans, gordiaceans, and annelids.
2. (loosely) any of numerous small creeping animals with more or less slender, elongated bodies, and without limbs or with very short ones, including individuals of widely differing kinds, as earthworms, tapeworms, insect larvae, and adult forms of some insects.
3. something resembling or suggesting a worm in appearance, movement, etc.
4. Informal. a groveling, abject, or contemptible person.
5. the spiral pipe in which the vapor is condensed in a still.
6. (not in technical use) screw thread(def 1).
7. screw conveyor.
8. Also called worm screw. a rotating cylinder or shaft, cut with one or more helical threads, that engages with and drives a worm wheel.
9. something that penetrates, injures, or consumes slowly or insidiously, like a gnawing worm.
10. worms, (used with a singular verb) Pathology, Veterinary Pathology. any disease or disorder arising from the presence of parasitic worms in the intestines or other tissues; helminthiasis.
11. (used with a plural verb) Metallurgy. irregularities visible on the surfaces of some metals subject to plastic deformation.
12. the lytta of a dog or other carnivorous animal.
13. computer code planted illegally in a software program so as to destroy data in any system that downloads the program, as by reformatting the hard disk.