Other forms: termites
A termite is a pale insect that eats wood and builds tall mounds. A termite mound, termite damage, treat for termites.
They digest wood with the help of microbes in the gut, which is why they can eat a house. The mounds in Africa and Australia can stand several metres high and are ventilated so precisely that architects have copied the design for cooling buildings.
1nountermiteA pale insect that eats wood and builds tall mounds.
“Termites had eaten through the wooden floor, so it had to be replaced.”
termite is an insect.
From Latin termes, a woodworm, whose plural termites Linnaeus used for the insect. English took the singular back from it.
Built from
From termites. Inferred singular of termites, the plural form borrowed from Latin termites, the plural of termes (“woodworm”), which was used for termites by Linnaeus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA