worm food

See also: wormfood and worm-food

English

Alternative forms

• food for worms, worm-food, worm's food, wormfood

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

worm food (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic, often darkly humorous, dysphemistic) One or more corpses, especially in a state of decay; remains.
   • 1830, J. Y. A. "The Powder Plot," The Olio Vol. 4, p. 246 (Google preview):

     "Say, have ye a drug that will make worm's food of your enemy in an hour?"

   • 1996 May 29, Kevin Sack, “Awaiting Execution, And Finding Buddha”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 June 2015:

     At a state clemency board hearing earlier this month, a prosecutor said that Mr. Parker once joked that he had turned the Warrens into "worm food."

   • 2007 May 20, Thomas Peipert, “Donors Hope Plastinated Bodies Educate”, in Washington Post, retrieved 24 June 2015:

     "It's something that you want to do instead of being ashes or worm food, to be some kind of asset instead of being in the ground," she said.

   • 2012 June 28, Allan Massie, “At some point your luck will run out”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 24 June 2015:

     [F]or those of us who think that the grave is the end of us, when we shall become food for worms, the sensible course is to make the most of every passing hour.

   • 2013 December 3, Victoria Bekiempis, “Atheists in Foxholes Want Chaplains, Too”, in Newsweek, retrieved 24 June 2015:

     Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway said, “I can’t imagine an atheist accompanying a notification team as they go into some family’s home to let them have the worst news of their life and this guy says, ‘You know, that’s it — your son’s just worms, I mean, worm food.’”

Usage notes

• Sometimes used in contexts representing the point of view that there is no afterlife or spiritual component to human nature.

Synonyms

• dog meat
• See Thesaurus:corpse
• See Thesaurus:dead

Further reading

• “worm food”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.