glowworm

• glow-worm

From Middle English glouworm; equivalent to glow +‎ worm.

glowworm (plural glowworms)

1. The larva or wingless grub-like female of a beetle from the families Phengodidae or Lampyridae that gives out a green light from its abdomen.
   • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5,,

     The glowworm shows the matin to be near

     And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

     Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.

   • 1604, William Alexander, The Alexandraean Tragedie, Act V, Scene 2, in The Monarchicke Tragedies, London: Ed. Blount, 1607,

     Some things afarre doe like the Glow-worme shine,

     That lookt to neere haue of that light no signe.

   • c. 1613, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, London: John Waterson, 1623, Act IV, Scene 2,

     Glories (like glowe-wormes) a farre off, shine bright,

     But look’d to neere, haue neither heate, nor light.

   • 1681, Andrew Marvell, “The Mower to the Glo-Worms” in Miscellaneous Poems, London: Robert Boulter, p. 44,

     Ye Glo-worms, whose officious Flame

     To wandring Mowers shows the way,

     That in the Night have lost their aim,

     And after foolish Fires do stray;

   • 1819, William Wordsworth, “The Waggoner” Canto 1, in The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1820, p. 7,

     Confiding Glow-worms, ’tis a night

     Propitious to your earth-born light!

   • 1954, Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood, New York: New Directions, p. 1,

     Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glowworms down the aisles of the organplaying wood.

2. (Australia, New Zealand) A carnivorous gnat larva in the keroplatid genus Arachnocampa that spins threads to capture insects attracted by its glow.

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