ant
Meanings
noun
- Any of various insects in the family Formicidae in the order Hymenoptera, typically living in large colonies composed almost entirely of flightless females.
- A Web spider.
verb
- To rub insects, especially ants, on one's body, perhaps to control parasites or clean feathers.
name
- A diminutive of the male given name Anthony, from Latin.
- A river in Norfolk, England, tributary to the Bure.
- The 27th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
name
- Initialism of Afghanistan National Television.
noun
- Initialism of Aids to Navigation Team, as used in the United States Coast Guard.
- Abbreviation of actor–network theory.
- Acronym of ambiguous nuclear transient.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *āmaitijā Old English ǣmete Middle English ampte English ant From Middle English ampte, amte, emete, amete, from Old English ǣmete (“ant”), from Proto-West Germanic *āmaitijā (literally “biting-thing, cutter”), of uncertain and debated origin (q.v.), but probably from Proto-Germanic *ē- (“off, away”) + *maitaną (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂y- (“to cut”). Cognate with Scots emmot (“ant”), dialectal Dutch emt, empt (“ant”), German Ameise and Emse (“ant”). See also emmet.
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.