louse

Victor was a louse in his first marriage and father of the year in his second.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025

The human louse is a wingless, blood-sucking parasite that lives its entire life on its host.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2023

“We can see the louse DNA reflected in our own history.”

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 7, 2023

Only one animal parasite, the pygmy hog-sucking louse, is currently included on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, and none are included on the U.S.

From Scientific American ● May 18, 2022

I had probably been too filthy for any self-respecting louse to take up residence.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

While starving and battling lice, the young women distracted themselves by fantasizing about food.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026

Monkeys that soaked in the warm water had different patterns of lice on their bodies and differences in certain gut bacteria.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 3, 2026

They picked them up from school, held the flashlight while I checked for lice, assisted them with math homework and attended their school performances.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2025

Hundreds of parasites have the ability to infect humans, including lice, mites and ticks.

From Salon ● May 18, 2025

When people took sick, their temperatures rose and caused the body lice to seek more hospitable abodes.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

In the album’s liner notes, the band offers “special thanks from these louses to our spouses for letting us make all this racket around the houses.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 13, 2022

These include ensuring legal protections for endangered louses and nematodes, building parasitism into the K-12 curriculum, and getting the public not just mildly curious but “enthusiastic” about parasites.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2020

In layman's terms, it's a hotel for bugs, the smallest of the small—wood louses, millipedes, and anything else that could find its way in.

From Golf Digest ● Oct. 16, 2013

Maybe all her friends are a bunch of louses and she should cut her losses and not invite them to the wedding.

From Slate ● Jan. 22, 2013

"It shows his mind's troubled, for he usually louses at six."

From Sentimental Tommy The Story of His Boyhood by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

No 404 notice, no “your internet connection is loused up” message — and especially, no Wordle.

From The Verge ● Feb. 16, 2022

He has called Adlai Stevenson "completely inept," castigated Averell Harriman as the man "who loused up Laos," described Pierre Salinger as "the thinking man's filter."

From Time Magazine Archive

In New Ulm, Minn., police forbade truckers to park livestock near churches when congregations complained that off-key moos loused up the hymns.

From Time Magazine Archive

What finally "loused up" Willie was a big, quiet civil servant named Elmer.

From Time Magazine Archive

He could hardly believe he had loused things up quite so badly.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

“I’m lousing up my moon picture,” Messuri said.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 15, 2019

“A couple of generations after I’m dead and gone,” he likes to say, “the Ph.D.’s will start lousing through my work. Just imagine their surprise. ‘

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 27, 2015

Silver, who is called only Silver, perhaps because no one respects him enough to use his full name, has gone through life lousing things up.

From New York Times ● Aug. 15, 2012

Does she think he regrets lousing up their marriage?

From The Guardian ● Oct. 22, 2010

My main trouble was in lousing you up just a little bit, not enough to make you suspect anything.

From Sentiment, Inc. by Poul William Anderson