Meaning

2 senses
  1. (usually)The larval stage of the mealworm beetle (Tenebrio molitor), a species of darkling beetle.

    We buy mealworms to supplement our chickens' feed ration, and they do some scratching in the yard to find other bugs too.

    мучно́й червьmučnój červʹ

  2. (broadly, informal, sometimes)This or any other larva that looks similar and is found in similar circumstances (i.e., in meal, in flour, in food, in the pantry, in feed, in the feedroom), such as the larva of a mealmoth (flour moth).

    Near-synonym: waxworm

    They'd seen a few mealmoths and mealworms in recent days, and then they figured out that the cornflakes in the pantry were the source of the problem.

More definitions
  • the larva of beetles of the family Tenebrionidae

Examples

2 sentences
  1. Are there really mealworms that eat styrofoam?

  2. Mealworms are edible for humans and can be grown easily.

Translations

6 languages
Русский
By meaning 1
larva of the Tenebrio molitor:

Origin

From meal + worm.

From meal + worm.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: mealworms
Singularmealworm
Pluralmealworms

regular

Synonyms

1 synonyms

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
mealworm — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto