backworm

English

Etymology

From back +‎ worm.

Noun

backworm (plural backworms)

  1. (obsolete) The thread-like worm found in filanders, the disease of hawks.
    • August 1593, Walter Raleigh, letter‎[1]:
      The Indian falcon is sick of the backworm
    • 1735, The Sportsmen's Dictionary, London: Printed for C. Hitch, at the Red Lion, and C. Davis, both in Pater-Noster-Row; and S. Austen, at the Angel and Bible in St. Paul's Church-Yard:
      The backworm is rarely quite killed[...].
    • 1964, Thomas Browne, “Of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern”, in Geoffrey Keynes, editor, The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, volume 3, London: Faber and Faber, page 62:
      [... T]his, if any, may probably destroy that obstinate Disease of the Filander or Backworm.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “backworm”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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