inchman
English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From inch (“unit of length”) + man (“soldier”).
Noun
[edit]inchman (plural inchmen)
- (Australia, chiefly Tasmania) Any of several species of large, aggressive ants of the genus Myrmecia, mainly endemic to Australia.
- 1990, Beverley Farmer, A Body of Water: A Year's Notebook, page 46:
- We sit under the eaves to eat, or on stumps in the grass (there are “inchmen” about, giant lumbering bull ants).
- 1994, Richard Flanagan, Death of a River Guide, page 203:
- They would walk many miles along Ocean Beach and they would eat the fleshy leaves of the plant they called pigface and she called dead men's fingers, would rub the bite of jack-jumpers and the inchmen with the pulpy flesh.
- 2004, John Harwood, The Ghost Writer, page 9:
- Outside in the yard we had fierce orange bull ants whose bite was like a red-hot needle; and, for a season, two nests of the dreaded inchmen.
Synonyms
[edit]- (aggressive ant of the genus Myrmecia): bull ant, bulldog ant, inch ant, jack jumper (Myrmecia pilosula), jumper ant, sergeant ant
