louse
pronunciation
How to pronounce louse in British English:
UK [laʊs]
How to pronounce louse in American English:
US [laʊs]
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- Noun:
- wingless usually flattened blood-sucking insect parasitic on warm-blooded animals
- a person who has a nasty or unethical character undeserving of respect
- any of several small insects especially aphids that feed by sucking the juices from plants
- wingless insect with mouth parts adapted for biting; mostly parasitic on birds
Word Origin
- louse (n.)
- "parasitic insect infecting human hair and skin," Old English lus, from Proto-Germanic *lus (cognates: Old Norse lus, Middle Dutch luus, Dutch luis, Old High German lus, German Laus), from PIE *lus- "louse" (cognates: Welsh lleuen "louse"). Slang meaning "obnoxious person" is from 1630s. The plural lice (Old English lys) shows effects of i-mutation. The verb meaning "to clear of lice" is from late 14c.; to louse up "ruin, botch" first attested 1934, from the literal sense (of bedding), from 1931. Grose ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1785] has louse ladder "A stitch fallen in a stocking."
Example
- 1. One louse can kill you .
- 2. By comparing louse dna , a team led by david l. reed of the university of florida has now reconstructed how this strange situation probably came about .
- 3. In one house there is a mousy mouse with a louse on its head , holding a hose .
- 4. Jack : when you catch a louse , just put a little of that drug on its mouth and it will die immediately .
- 5. Vincent s. smith , a louse taxonomist at the natural history museum in london , has found that the tree stretches so far back in time that the host of the first louse would have been a dinosaur , probably one of the theropod dinosaurs that were the ancestors of birds .