slowworm

English

Alternative forms

• slow worm, slow-worm

Etymology

From Middle English sloworm (possibly influenced by slow), from Old English slāwyrm (“slow-worm, blindworm”), from *slā (related to Norwegian slo (“slow-worm”), Swedish slå (“slow-worm”)) + wyrm (“worm, snake”). Compare Swedish ormslå.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsləʊwɜː(ɹ)m/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

slowworm (plural slowworms)

1. A small Old World lizard, Anguis fragilis, often mistaken for a snake, having no legs and small eyes.

   Synonym: blindworm

   Hypernym: lizard

   • c. 1588, Robert Greene, “Scene Eleventh. Frier Bacons cell.”, in The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay‎^[1]:

     Well, sir, it may be we shall have some better orations of it anon: well, Ile watch you as narrowly as ever you were watcht, and Ile play with you as the nightingale with the slowworme; […]

Translations

Anguis fragilis

• Basque: ziraun
• Bulgarian: слепок m (slepok)
• Catalan: vidriol m, serp de vidre, noia (ca) f, llisona (ca) f
• Czech: slepýš (cs) m
• Dutch: hazelworm (nl) m
• Esperanto: angviso
• Finnish: vaskitsa (fi)
• Franco-Provençal: anvouèt
• French: orvet (fr) m
• Galician: escáncer m, liscanzo m
• German: Blindschleiche (de) f, Haselwurm m, Hartwurm m
• Hungarian: lábatlan gyík
• Irish: earcán m, earcán caoch m
• Italian: orbettino (it) m
• Korean: 유럽무족도마뱀 (yureommujokdomabaem)
• Manx: ardnieu kyagh m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: stålorm m

  Nynorsk: sleve f, slo f, stålorm m

• Persian: کلمره
• Polabian: snok m
• Polish: padalec (pl) m
• Portuguese: licranço m, cobra de vidro f, licanço m, alicanço m
• Romanian: năpârcă (ro) f
• Russian: верете́ница (ru) f (vereténica)
• Spanish: lución m, enánago, culebrilla de cristal
• Swedish: kopparorm (sv) c, kopparödla (sv) c, ormslå (sv) c
• Turkish: yılanımsı kertenkele
• Volapük: rovät (vo)
• Walloon: dizi (wa) m, colevrot (wa) m, scourlot (wa) m
• Welsh: madfall (cy) m or f, neidr ddefaid f

References

• Anatoly Liberman (2008) An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, pages 196-200

Further reading

• Anguis fragilis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia