woodlouse

UK/ˈwʊdˌlaʊs/US/ˈwʊdˌlaʊs/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

A woodlouse is a small grey armoured creature found under damp stones. A woodlouse under the pot.

It is a crustacean rather than an insect and is more closely related to a crab than a beetle. A woodlouse breathes through gills, which is why it dies in a dry room.

Definitions of woodlouse

1nounwoodlouseA small grey armoured creature found under damp stones.C1
“Every woodlouse in the greenhouse was under the same tray.”

woodlouse is a creature.

Where it comes from

Wood plus louse, though the animal is neither.

From wood + louse.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Insects & Sea Life

Practise this word

woodlouse in the wild

The Dysderidae, also known as woodlouse hunters, sowbug-eating spiders, and cell spiders, are a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1837.
Dysderidae
Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, common pill woodlouse, rolly-polly, potato bug, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter is a widespread European species of woodlouse.
Armadillidium vulgare
Porcellio scaber (otherwise known as the common rough woodlouse or simply rough woodlouse), is a species of woodlouse native to Europe but with a cosmopolitan distribution.
Porcellio scaber
The woodlouse spider (Dysdera crocata) is a species of spider that preys primarily upon woodlice.
Woodlouse spider
Other common names refer to variations on the common name of its prey, including woodlouse hunter, sowbug hunter, sowbug killer, pillbug hunter and slater spider.
Woodlouse spider

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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