wormholen.
/ˈwəːmhəʊl/, U.S. /ˈwərmˌhoʊl/ 1. A hole made by a burrowing worm or insect in wood, fruit, books, etc.
ΘΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [noun] > a hole bored, pierced, or perforated > hole made by boring worm or insect
wormhole1594
shot-hole1972
1594 W. Shakespeare Lucrece sig. G3v To fill with worme-holes stately monuments. View more context for this quotation
1600 W. Shakespeare Henry V ii. iv. 86 Tis no sinister, nor no awkeward claime, Pickt from the worm holes of old vanisht dayes.
1615 S. Rowlands Melancholie Knight 33 Old bookes, wherein the worm-holes doe remaine.
1684 J. Smith Profit & Pleasure United 167 As for your Float let it be of the lightest Cork you can get, clear from cracks or worme holes.
1774 O. Goldsmith Hist. Earth VIII. 23 Others, whose time of transformation is also near at hand, fasten their tails to a tree, or to the first worm-hole they meet, in a beam.
1858 O. W. Holmes Autocrat of Breakfast-table xii. 350 An apple with a worm-hole.
1874 W. H. Willshire Introd. Study & Coll. Anc. Prints iii. 79 The worm-holes so frequently to be met with in the old crab and pear-wood blocks of the early masters.
2. Physics. A hypothetical interconnection between widely separated regions of space-time.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > physics > relativity > space-time > [noun] > hypothetical connection between regions
wormhole1957
1957 Misner & Wheeler in Ann. Physics II. 532 This analysis forces one to consider situations..where there is a net flux of lines of force through what topologists would call a handle of the multiply-connected space and what physicists might perhaps be excused for more vividly terming a ‘wormhole’.
1978 J. M. Pasachoff & M. L. Kutner University Astron. xii. 326 Thus, in principle, mass that disappears in a black hole may emerge somewhere else. If the somewhere else is a distinct region in our universe, the connection is called a wormhole.
1981 P. Davies Edge of Infinity ix. 179 The quantum disturbance will be so severe that even the topology of spacetime will alter. Instead of a ‘bumpy sheet’, it will display a foam-like structure, full of worm-holes and bridges.
Derivatives
ˈwormholed adj. perforated with wormholes.
ΘΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [adjective] > having (a) hole(s) > full of holes > specific
wormholed1870
pinholed1924
1870 J. R. Lowell Among my Bks. 1st Ser. 202 The resolution and persistence of the one, like sound timber wormholed and made shaky, as it were, by the other's infirmity of will and discontinuity of purpose.
1875 ‘S. Beauchamp’ N. Hamilton I. 166 ‘See, sir,’ he would say as he turned the chairs over with a rap on the floor, to shake the sawdust out. ‘There's the proof: worm-holed you see, sir, worm-holed’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1928; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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