Home › Glossary › Letter W

Worm-Eaten

Disease
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Worm-Eaten: Consumed, damaged, or riddled with holes by worms, often used metaphorically to describe decay, corruption, or something that has been slowly and secretly destroyed from within.

Detailed Definition
Worm-eaten literally describes wood, cloth, flesh, or fruit damaged by burrowing creatures, often in association with rot and disease. In poetry, it offers a vivid image of deterioration occurring from within, where the outer surface may remain briefly intact. A worm-eaten book, coffin, tree, or heart can signify mortality, neglect, and concealed ruin. The term is particularly suited to Gothic imagery, graveyard meditation, and poems about time’s patient destruction.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Worm-eaten coffins slept beneath the chapel floor,” using worm-eaten to evoke age, burial, and decay; “A worm-eaten book opened its brittle mouth” personifies an old volume damaged by insects; In a ruined-house poem, “worm-eaten beams” show that time has consumed the structure from within; “His worm-eaten promises collapsed at a touch” uses decay metaphorically for untrustworthy words
Additional Notes
Literally damaged by worms, often wood, books, or corpses. Figuratively, it suggests hidden decay: corruption working inward beneath an apparently sound surface.
Also Known As
Worm eaten
Skip to main content