Bollworm

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The larvae of any of various species of moth that are pests to cotton.

    "[…] which means that sowing at the usual rate of about two and one half kelehs of seed per feddan, we may sow at the same time from 4,000 to 5,000 living pink bollworms in the infested seeds; […]"

  2. 2
    any of various moth caterpillars that destroy cotton bolls wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
worm

Example

More examples

"[…] which means that sowing at the usual rate of about two and one half kelehs of seed per feddan, we may sow at the same time from 4,000 to 5,000 living pink bollworms in the infested seeds; […]"

Etymology

From boll + worm.

Related phrases

South American bollworm mothSudan bollwormcotton bollwormpink bollwormpinkspotted bollwormred bollwormrough bollwormspiny bollwormspotted bollworm

More for "bollworm"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.