brainworm
/ˈbreɪnwəːm/noun
1A worm imagined as infesting the brain. Chiefly figurative.
2 Zoology and Veterinary Med. Any of various parasitic worms that infect the brains of mammals or other vertebrates; especially any nematode of the genera Elaphostrongylus and Parelaphostrongylus (family Protostrongylidae), which parasitize the central nervous system and certain other tissues of deer. Also (without article): worms of this kind.
3 Zoology. A liver fluke, Dicrocoelium dendriticum (family Dicrocoelidae), which parasitizes many species of mammal (and occasionally humans), and has a cercarial stage which enters the brain of an intermediate host, the ant, resulting in behavioural changes conducive to transmission to mammals.
Origin
Early 17th century; earliest use found in Richard Brathwait (?1588–1673), poet and writer. From brain + worm.
- godly
- godly sorrow
- godly-wise
- godmama
- godmamma
- god-man
- God-manhood
- godmomma
- godmother
- godmotherhood
- godmothership
- Godness
- god-one
- God (or goodness or heaven) knows
- God (or Heaven) forbid
- go down
- godown
- go down a bomb
- go down a storm
- go down in history
- go down on
- go down (or drop or fall) like ninepins
- go down (or over) like a lead balloon
- go down the drain
- go down the gurgler