palmerworm
nounEtymology From palmer + worm, because wandering about like a palmer.
1
Archaic Any small, terrestrial invertebrate, usually an agricultural pest and having many legs and a hairy body.
- And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joel 2:25:
2
A gelechiid moth, Dichomeris ligulella, destructive to fruit trees.
- If history repeats itself in the case of the palmerworm, fruit growers are not likely to encounter this insect in injurious numbers more than once in a lifetime, since in the past outbreaks have occurred only at intervals of[…]1922, Altus Lacy Quaintance, Edouard Horace Siegler, The More Important Apple Insects, page 58: