いもむし

Japanese

For pronunciation and definitions of いもむし – see the following entry.

【芋虫】 [noun] a hairless caterpillar [from 1603] [noun] (figurative) an angry person (from the way that a person may puff up when angry and go red and swollen in the face, similar to the defense behaviors of some caterpillars) [from 1690] [noun] (figurative, derogatory) a dummy; a term used to ridicule a person [from 1749] [noun] a children's song and game, played by everyone squatting and holding onto the waist or shoulders of the person in front, and the whole group trying to move like a caterpillar [from 1830s] [noun] a kind of traditional toy made to look and move like a caterpillar Alternative spelling イモムシ

(This term, いもむし, is the hiragana spelling of the above term.) For a list of all kanji read as いもむし, see Category:Japanese kanji read as いもむし.)