EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR WORMLIKE
Vermiculate: worm-like in form: a marking with wormlike tracings.
He named it vermiculatus, owing to the "wormlike" appearance of its markings.
It usually remains motionless, lying on its side, or else displays its drowsy activity merely by feeble, wormlike movements.
The wormlike thread of men wound round picquet after picquet, and throttled the sentries on the glacis, and at the gate.
The eggs generally hatch in a few days, and a minute, white, wormlike larva emerges (Fig. 1).
Ocelli appear to be primitive types of insect eye which are, perhaps, an inheritance from a wormlike ancestor.
Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and wormlike thing.
Along the bottom, between the curious mounds, writhed a wormlike thing.
WORD ORIGIN
Old English wurm, variant of wyrm "serpent, dragon," also in later Old English "earthworm," from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (cf. Old Saxon, Old High German, German wurm, Old Frisian and Dutch worm, Old Norse ormr, Gothic waurms "serpent, worm"), from PIE *wrmi-/*wrmo- "worm" (cf. Greek rhomos, Latin vermis "worm," Old Russian vermie "insects," Lithuanian varmas "insect, gnat"), possibly from root *wer- (3) "turn" (see versus).
The ancient category of these was much more extensive than the modern, scientific, one and included serpents, scorpions, maggots, and the supposed causes of certain diseases. For substitution of -o- for -u-, see come. As an insult meaning "abject, miserable person" it dates from Old English.