angleworm
noun/ˈæŋ.ɡəlˌwɜɹm/
Etymology From angle + worm.
1
US An earthworm, used as or destined to be used as bait to catch fish.
- A bird came down the walk : / He did not know I saw ; / He bit an angle-worm in halves / And ate the fellow, raw.a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “In the Garden”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 140:
- [B]eneath their surface—now and then breaking through a reflection, revealed when the pools dried—were salamanders, newts, and tangled clumps of angleworms.1975, Larry Woiwode, Beyond the Bedroom Wall, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 192:
- Related terms
- nightcrawler, red wiggler