shipworm

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English

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WOTD – 25 June 2023

Etymology

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A dried specimen of the naval shipworm (Teredo navalis) extracted from the wood of a ship together with the calcareous tunnel that originally surrounded it which has curled into a circle. The white structures are the shipworm’s shell which it uses to tunnel through the wood.
A piece of wood infested by shipworms.

From ship +‎ worm.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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shipworm (plural shipworms)

  1. Any of several wormlike marine molluscs (not true worms) of the family Teredinidae that bore through the wooden hulls of ships and other woody material immersed in salt water; specifically, the naval shipworm or turu (Teredo navalis), the type species of the genus Teredo.
    Synonyms: teredine, teredinid, termite of the sea
    • 1697, William Dampier, chapter XIII, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 363:
      Ship-VVorms [running head] […] It is reported that thoſe VVorms vvhich get into a Ships bottom in the ſalt vvater, vvill dye in the freſh vvater; and that the freſh vvater VVorms vvill dye in ſalt vvater: but in brackiſh vvater both ſorts vvill increaſe prodigiouſly.
    • 1756, Patrick Browne, “Of Insects”, in The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica. […], London: […] T[homas] Osborne, and J. Shipton, […], →OCLC, part II, book III, class I, section II, order IV, page 395:
      The Ship-VVorm of Jamaica. This inſect is extremely deſtructive to all the ſhips that anchor for any time in the harbours of Jamaica, or in any other part vvithin the tropics: They cut vvith great facility through the planks, and burrovv a conſiderable vvay in the ſubſtance of them, incruſtating the ſides of all their holes vvith a ſmooth teſtaceous ſubſtance […].
    • 1791, [Erasmus Darwin], The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, part I (The Economy of Vegetation), page 30:
      The Teredo, or ſhip-vvorm, has tvvo calcareous javvs, hemiſpherical, flat before, and angular behind. The ſhell is taper, vvinding, penetrating ſhips and ſubmarine vvood, and vvas brought from India into Europe, […].
    • 1826, John Mason Good, “Lecture X. On the Principle of Life, Irritability, and Muscular Power.”, in The Book of Nature. […], volumes I (Series I. Nature of the Material World; […].), London: […] [A[ndrew] & R. Spottiswoode] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 265:
      The teredo navalis, or ship-worm, is seldom six inches in length, but the muscles and armour with which its head is provided enables it to penetrate readily into the stoutest oak-planks of a vessel, committing dreadful havoc among her timbers, and chiefly producing the necessity for her being copper-bottomed.
    • 1852 January 1, “Art. II.—Shell Fish: Their Ways and Works. An Introduction to Conchology, or Elements of the Natural History of Molluscous Animals. By George Johnston, M.D. LL.D. London, J. Van Voorst. [book review]”, in The Westminster Review, volume I (New Series; volume LVII overall), number CXI, London: John Chapman, […], →OCLC, page 55:
      [W]e have suffered seriously in our dock yards and harbors by the operations of the shipworm, to which the soundest and hardest oak offers no impediment.
    • 1955, Rachel Carson, “The Rim of Sand”, in The Edge of the Sea, New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →OCLC, page 185:
      Old spars and water-soaked timbers cast on the beach are full of the workings of the shipworm—long cylindrical tunnels penetrating all parts of the wood. Usually nothing remains of the creatures themselves except occasional fragments of their small calcaerous shells; these proclaim that the shipworm is a true mollusk, despite its long, slender, and wormlike body.
    • 2002, Kai N. Hoppe, “Teredo navalis – The Cryptogenic Shipworm”, in Erkki Leppäkoski, Stephan Gollasch, Sergej Olenin, editors, Invasive Aquatic Species of Europe: Distribution, Impacts, and Management, Dordrecht, South Holland: Springer Science+Business Media, →DOI, →ISBN, page 116:
      The shipworms, wood boring bivalves of the family Teredinidae, belong to the oldest invaders. […] Even though mankind has tried to develop counter measures for thousands of years, still there is no easy solution to the shipworm problem in sight.
    • 2004, Donald Launer, “The Lower Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Raritan Bay, and Their Tributaries”, in A Cruising Guide to New Jersey Waters, revised edition, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 39:
      Once inside edible wood, the shipworm begins eating and growing, and some species, such as those in the Caribbean, can attain a length of over 3 feet. In our waters, however, the shipworm seldom attains a length of over a foot-and-a-half long.
    • 2020 August 12, Andrew Mourant, “The Tide is Turning for a Victorian Wonder”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 51:
      In 1980, divers discovered that Teredo navalis, a shipworm, had infested the timber support. Such was the damage, it left the viaduct at risk of being closed permanently – and with it, the entire line.

Hyponyms

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Coordinate terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “ship-worm, n.” under “ship, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “shipworm, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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