Worm

‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’

Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung. A woman’s shape, now lank and cold and blue, The dwelling of the many-coloured worm, Hung there […]

1561, Geneva Bible, Acts 28:3-4, And when Paul had gathered a nomber of stickes, & laid them on the fyre, there came a viper out of the heat, and leapt on his hand. Now when the Barbarians sawe the worme hang on his hand, they said among them selues This man surely is a murtherer, whome, thogh he hathe escaped the sea, yet Vengeance hathe not suffred to liue.

[…] No, ’tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile […]

When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm! His mouth he opened and displayed his tusks; Not a limb had he that was motionless.

In the Cross of Cong (A.D. 1123) the Celtic inter-laced patterns are found side by side with the "worm-dragon" ornament ..

Indeed the allusion to the more renowned worm killed by the Wælsing is sufficient indication that the poet selected a dragon of well-founded purpose[.]

The after fifty years a foul worm, a dragon, took it upon itself to hold sway through the heavens at night.

Don't try to run away, you little worm!

But I am a worme, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Would he devote that Sacred Head / For ſuch a Worm as I?

When Trevor opened his email, a worm spread to 100 people in his address book.

If the Worms of the Nut or Spindle be worn, the Spindle must be examin'd by the Smith

Food for the worms.

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!

We wormed our way through the underbrush.

I took a firm grip of Josella's hand, and we started to worm our way along as unobviously as possible.

Inch by inch I wormed along the secret passageway, flat to the ground, not once raising my head, hardly daring to pull a full breath[…].

When debates and fretting jealousy / Did worm and work within you more and more, / Your colour faded.

He wormed his way into the organization.

With “facts” generated by Wikipedia worming themselves into every corner of our digital lives, such as your Alexa speaker or iPhone, perhaps it’s the ubiquity of information that’s the problem – and something that should concern us all.

They […]find themselves wormed out of all power.

They[…]wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell.

He nodded. "Mum's the word, Mrs. Bunting! It'll all be in the last editions of the evening newspapers—it can't be kep' out. There'd be too much of a row if twas!" "Are you going off to that public-house now?" she asked. "I've got a awk'ard job—to try and worm something out of the barmaid."

Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

Ropes[…]are generally wormed before they are served.

The men[…] assisted the laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.