Scarlet (worm)

Worm - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(1.) Heb. sas (Isa. 51:8), denotes the caterpillar of the clothes-moth.

(2.) The manna bred worms (tola'im), but on the Sabbath there was not any worm (rimmah) therein (Ex. 16:20, 24). Here these words refer to caterpillars or larvae, which feed on corrupting matter.

These two Hebrew words appear to be interchangeable (Job 25:6; Isa. 14:11). Tola'im in some places denotes the caterpillar (Deut. 28:39; Jonah 4:7), and rimmah, the larvae, as bred from putridity (Job 17:14; 21:26; 24:20). In Micah 7:17, where it is said, "They shall move out of their holes like worms," perhaps serpents or "creeping things," or as in the Revised Version, "crawling things," are meant.

The word is used figuratively in Job 25:6; Ps. 22:6; Isa. 41:14; Mark 9:44, 46, 48; Isa. 66:24.

Worm - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

WORM, n. [G. This word is probably named form a winding motion, and the root of swarm.]

1. In common usage, any small creeping animal, or reptile, either entirely without feet, or with very short ones, including a great variety of animals of different classes and orders, viz. Certain small serpents, as the blind-worm or slow-worm; the larvas of insects, viz. Grubs, caterpillars and maggots, as the wood-worm, canker-worm, silk-worm, (the larva of a moth (Phaloena,) which spins the filaments of which silk is made,) the grub that injures corn, grass, _c., the worms that breed in putrid flesh, the bots in the stomach of horses, and many others; certain wingless insects, as the glow-worm; the intestinal worms, or such as breed in the cavities and organs of living animals, as the tape-worm, the round-worm, the fluke, _c.; and numerous animals found in the earth, and in water, particularly in the sea, as the earth-worm or lumbricus, the hair-worm or gordius, the teredo, or worm that bores in to the bottom of ships, _c. Worms, in the plural, in common usage, is used for intestinal worms, or those which breed in the stomach and bowels, particularly the round and thread worms, (lumbrici and ascarides,) which are often found there in great numbers; as we say, a child has worms.

2. In zoology, the term Vermes or worms has been applied to different divisions of invertebral animals, by different naturalists. Linnes class of vermes, includes the following orders, viz. Intestina, including the proper intestinal worms the earth-worm, the hair-worm, the teredo, and some other marine worms; Mollusca, including the slug, and numerous soft animals inhabiting the water, particularly the sea; Testacea, including all the proper shell-fish; Zoophyta or compound animals, including corals, polypes, and spunges; and Infusoria, or simple microscopic animlacules. His character of the class is, --spiracles obscure, jaws various, organs of sense usually tentacula, no brain, ears nor nostrils, limbs wanting, frequently hermaphrodite. This class includes all the invertebral animals, except the insects and crustacea. The term Vermes has been since greatly limited, particularly by the French naturalists. Lamarch confined it to the intestinal worms, and some others, whose organization is equally imperfect. The character of his class is, suboviparous, body soft, highly reproductive, undergo no metamorphosis; no eyes, nor articulated limbs, nor radiated disposition of internal organs.

3. Remorse; that which incessantly gnaws the conscience; that which torments.

Where their worm dieth not. Mark 9.

4. A being debased and despised.

I am a worm, and no man. Psa 22.

5. A spiral instrument or iron screw, used for drawing wads and cartridges from cannon or small arms.

6. Something spiral, vermiculated, or resembling a worm; as the threads of a screw.

7. In chemistry and distilleries, a spiral leaden pipe placed in a tub of water, through which the vapor passes in distillation, and in which it is cooled and condensed. It is called also a serpentine.

8. A small worm-like ligament situated beneath a dogs tongue.

WORM, v.i. To work slowly, gradually and secretly.

When debates and fretting jealousy did worm and work within you more and more, your color faded.

WORM, v.t.

1. To expel or undermine by slow and secret means.

They find themselves wormed out of all power.

2. To cut something, called a worm, from under the tongue of a dog.

3. To draw the wad or cartridge from a gun; to clean by the worm.

4. To wind a rope spirally round a cable, between the strands; or to wind a smaller rope with spun yarn.

To worm ones self into, to enter gradually by arts and insinuations; as to worm ones self into favor.

(tola`ath shani (Ex 25:4, etc.)): Cermes vermilio, a scale insect from which a red dye is obtained.

See COLOR; DYEING; WORM.

wurm, skar'-let-wurm:

(1) tola`, tole`ah, tola`ath, tola`ath, from tala`; compare Arabic tala, "to stretch the neck"; usually with shani, "bright" (of Arabic sana, "a flash of lightning"), the term tola`ath shani being translated "scarlet" in English Versions of the Bible; also in the same sense the following: sheni tola`ath (Le 14:4), tola` (Isa 1:18, English Versions of the Bible "crimson"), shanim (Pr 31:21; Isa 1:18, English Versions of the Bible "scarlet"), shani (Ge 38:28; Jos 2:18; So 4:3); also kokkos, and kokkinos (Mt 27:23; Heb 9:19; Re 17:3,4; 18:12,16).

(2) rimmah, from ramam, "to putrefy" (Ex 16:20); compare Arab ramm, "to become carious" (of bone).

(3) cac (only in Isa 51:8); compare Arabic sus, "worm"; ses, "moth" (Mt 6:19).

(4) zochalim (Mic 7:17, the King James Version "worms," the Revised Version (British and American) "crawling things"), from zachal, "to crawl."

(5) skolex (Mr 9:48), skolekobrotos, "eaten of worms" (Ac 12:23).

Besides the numerous passages, mostly in Ex, referring to the tabernacle, where tola`ath, with shani, is translated "scarlet," there are eight pasages in which it is translated "worm." These denote worms which occur in decaying organic matter or in sores (Ex 16:20; Isa 14:11; 66:24); or which are destructive to plants (De 28:39; Jon 4:7); or the word is used as a term of contempt or depreciation (Job 25:6; Ps 22:6; Isa 41:14). Rimmah is used in the same senses. It occurs with tola`ath as a synonym in Ex 16:24; Job 25:6; Isa 14:11. In Job 25:6, English Versions of the Bible, rendering both tola`ath and rimmah by "worm," 'enosh and 'adham by "man," and introducing twice "that is a," makes a painfully monotonous distich out of the concise and elegant original, in which not one word of the first part is repeated in the second. Cac (Isa 51:8), English Versions of the Bible "worm," is the larva of the clothes-moth. See MOTH. In none of the cases here considered are worms, properly so called, denoted, but various insect larvae which are commonly called "worms," e.g. "silkworm," "apple-worm," "meal-worm," etc. These larvae are principally those of Diptera or flies, Coleoptera or beetles, and Lepidoptera or butterflies and moths.

Tola`ath shani, "scarlet," is the scarlet-worm, Cermes vermilio, a scale-insect which feeds upon the oak, and which is used for producing a red dye. It is called by the Arabs dudeh, "a worm," a word also used for various insect larvae. It is also called qirmiz, whence" crimson" and the generic name Cermes. This scarlet-worm or scale-insect is one of the family Coccidae of the order Rhynchota or Hemiptera. The female is wingless and adheres to its favorite plant by its long, sucking beak, by which it extracts the sap on which it lives. After once attaching itself it remains motionless, and when dead its body shelters the eggs which have been deposited beneath it. The males, which are smaller than the females, pass through a complete metamorphosis and develop wings. The dye is made from the dried bodies of the females. Other species yielding red dyes are Porphyrophora polonica and Coccus cacti. The last named is the Mexican cochineal insect which feeds on the cactus and which largely supplanted the others after the discovery of America. Aniline dyes have in turn to a great extent superseded these natural organic colors, which, however, continue to be unsurpassed for some purposes.

See COLORS.

Alfred Ely Day