ant Hear it!

ant¹ Definition

ant (ant)

noun

any of a widespread family (Formicidae) of black, brown, or red hymenopteran insects, generally wingless, that live in colonies with a complex division of labor by castes, including workers, males, and a queen

Etymology: ME ante, amete < OE æmet(t)e: akin to OHG âmeiza < â-, off + meizen, Goth maitan, OE *mætan, to cut; hence, lit., “the cutter off”

ant² Definition

ant

  1. antenna
  2. antonym

Ant Definition

Ant

  1. Antarctica
  2. antonym

ant Synonyms

ant

n.

  1. emmet, pismire, insect.

    Types of ants include: worker, neuter, replete, queen, male.

  2. Antlike insects include: termite, white ant, army ant, legionary ant, fire ant, Texas red ant, black ant, visiting ant, agricultural ant, slave-making ant, slave ant, soldier ant, carpenter ant, mining ant, European ant, pharaoh ant, velvet ant.

ant Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • forage: Each foraging ant brings back about one and a half times its own weight in food each day.
  • swarm: I walked in about 20 feet and there they were in their favored halls of swarming army ants.
  • fly: A sex crazed flying ant with a clown's face!

Converse of subject

  • inhabit: The hollow stems have been found to be inhabited by ants ( Wheeler 1942 ).

Adjective modifier

  • stinging: If you put your hand down it will be covered with stinging ants or leeches.
  • Argentine: There was one statement which I noticed about Argentine ants getting into bedding.
  • Red: I don't want to swing off-topic onto Red Ant.

Modifies a noun

  • swarm: Another individual was probably seen very briefly near an ant swarm on the Cacao trial on 22 May.
  • colony: An ant colony is able to adjust its task allocation to external perturbation.
  • Formica: Very little information has been published about the black ant Formica lemani.
  • nest: My Dad always poured boiling water on ants nests to get rid of them.
  • hill: Q: What's the Pink Panther say when he steps on an ant hill?

Noun used with modifier

  • leaf-cutter: Must go and do a night time survey of out leaf-cutter ants!
  • leaf-cutting: Worker caste polymorphism has a genetic basis in a leaf-cutting ant.
  • leafcutter: Harpy and Crested Eagles hunt here and we'll see colonies of leafcutter ants and myriad butterflies.
  • Pharaoh: This method is particularly useful for the control of cockroaches and Pharaohs ants, where the bait is also taken back to the nest.
  • carpenter: Swarming is not the only means for carpenter ants to produce new nests.
  • queen: Queen ants should not be used in Ant world - just workers!

Possessives

  • nest: Please don't allow the children to disturb the wood ant's nest in any way.

Possessives

  • Pharaoh: Its effect on Pharaoh's ants is to make the queen lay sterile eggs.
ant Quotes

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Those who have handled scienceshave been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; thereasonersresemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance.But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans