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earworm

noun
/ˈɪəwɜːm/UK/ˈɪ(ə)ɹˌwɚm/US

Etymology

From ear + worm; senses 1 and 3 (“tune that keeps replaying in one’s head”; “earwig”) are a calque of German Ohrwurm (“tune that pops up in one’s memory all the time; earwig”) (from the idea of a creature burrowing into the ear, an erroneous belief where earwigs are concerned), while sense 2 (“moth larva”) refers to the fact that these pests infest, among other things, ears of maize or sweet corn.

  1. inherited from *wr̥mis✻
  2. inherited from *wurmiz✻
  3. inherited from wyrm — “worm, snake”
  4. inherited from worm
  5. compounded as earworm — “ear + worm”

Definitions

  1. A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if…

    A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if unwanted.

    • The chorus [of "Meeting in the Ladies Room" by Klymaxx] spawned an earworm so potent that women still mutter it as they exit for a bathroom break twenty years later.
    • "It's been haunting me," she said. / "Yeah, well," he said, weakly. "Sometimes tunes do that." [...] "I don't mean that I heard it once before and caught an earworm. [...]"

  2. Ellipsis of corn earworm (“larva of the moths Helicoverpa zea (syn. Heliothis zea) and…

    Ellipsis of corn earworm (“larva of the moths Helicoverpa zea (syn. Heliothis zea) and Helicoverpa armigera, which are agricultural pests”).

    • I had planned in mind to tell you [...] how I protected, that is, guaranteed, Evergreen sweet corn against the bud worm and the ear worm; [...]
    • The number of bollworms or ear worms increases greatly as the season advances. This indicates a need for hastening the maturity of all crops affected.

  3. An earwig (“insect of the order Dermaptera”).

    • Earwig, [...] The ear-worm or grub, a well-known insect, with large transparent wings, which eats fruit and flower-leaves, and has been erroneously supposed to creep into the human brain through the ear; [...]
    • Foreign Bodies in the Ear. [...] The ear-worm (forficula auricula), so much dreaded by people, occasions no special danger, but behaves in the ear in as harmless a manner as all other living animalcula of that calibre.

The neighborhood

Derived

earwormy

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for earworm. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA