teredo

From Latin terēdō (“woodworm”), from Ancient Greek τερηδών (terēdṓn, “wood-worm”). Compare Ancient Greek: τέρην (térēn, “smooth, gentle”).

• Rhymes: -iːdəʊ

teredo (plural teredos or teredoes)

1. (zoology) A mollusc of the genus Teredo, especially the shipworm, Teredo navalis.
   • 1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 123:

     Meet fell Tᴇʀᴇᴅᴏ, as he mines the keel / With beaked head, and break his lips of steel […] .

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 272:

     No timber that would stand the exposure to water as well as the ravages of white ants and the teredo, could be found.

From Ancient Greek τερηδών (terēdṓn, “woodworm”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /teˈreː.doː/, [t̪ɛˈreːd̪oː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /teˈre.do/, [t̪eˈrɛːd̪o]

terēdō f (genitive terēdinis); third declension

1. woodworm, boring-worm, wood-fretter
2. moth

Third-declension noun.

• Translingual: Teredo

• “teredo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “teredo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• teredo in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• teredo in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.