Bible dictionaries

Ant

What Bible dictionaries say about “Ant”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Ant - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Heb. nemalah, from a word meaning to creep, cut off, destroy), referred to in Prov. 6:6; 30:25, as distinguished for its prudent habits. Many ants in Palestine feed on animal substances, but others draw their nourishment partly or exclusively from vegetables. To the latter class belongs the ant to which Solomon refers. This ant gathers the seeds in the season of ripening, and stores them for future use; a habit that has been observed in ants in Texas, India, and Italy.

Ant - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

AN'T, in old authors, is a contraction of an it, that is if it. [See An.]

ANT, in our vulgar dialect, as in the phrases, I ant, you ant, he ant, we ant, _c., is undoubtedly a contraction of the Danish er, ere, the substantive verb in the present tense of the Indicative Mode. These phrases are doubtless legitimate remains of the Gothic dialect.

'ANT, n.

An emmet; a pismire. Ants constitute a genus of insects of the hymenopteral order, of which the characteristics are; a small scale between the breast and belly, with a joint so deep that the animal appears as if almost cut in two. The females, and the neuter or working ants, which have no sexual characteristics, are furnished with a hidden sting; and both males and females have wings, but the neuters have none. These insects meet together in companies, and maintain a sort of republic. They raise hillocks of earth, in which they live. In these there are paths, leading to the repositories of their provisions. The large black ants, in the warm climates of America, to avoid the effects of great rains, build large nests on trees, of light earth, roundish and plastered smooth.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

(nemalah = Arabic namalah): The word occurs only twice in the Bible, in the familiar passages in Pr 6:6; 30:25 in both of which this insect is made an example of the wisdom of providing in the summer for the wants of the winter. Not all ants store up seeds for winter use, but among the ants of Palestine there are several species that do so, and their well-marked paths are often seen about Palestinian threshing-floors and in other places where seeds are to be obtained. The path sometimes extends for a great distance from the nest.

Alfred Ely Day

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

(Heb. nemalah). This insect is mentioned twice in the Old Testament: in (Proverbs 6:6; 30:25) In the former of these passages the diligence of this insect is instanced by the wise man as an example worthy of imitation; in the second passage the ants wisdom is especially alluded to; for these insects "though they be little on the earth, are exceeding wise." (For a long time European commentators and naturalists denied that ants stored up grain for future use, as was asserted in Proverbs but while this is true of most of the 104 European species, two of those species do lay up food, and are called harvesting ants . Like species have been found in Texas and South America, and are known to exist in Palestine. They show many other proofs of their skill. Some of them build wonderful houses; these are often several stories high, sometimes five hundred times the height of the builders, with rooms, corridors, and vaulted roofs supported by pillars. Some species keep a kind of cows; others have a regular army of soldiers; some keep slaves --"No closer imitation of the ways of man could be found in the entire animal economy." (See Encyc. Brit.) McCooks "The Honey Ants" gives many curious facts about the habits of this peculiar kind of ant, and of the harvesting ants of the American plains.--ED.)

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith