DictionaryAI

ant

ANT/ænt/

Pluralants

Verbants, anting, anted

3 meanings of ant

Practice

  1. 1
    insectnouncountable
    A small insect of the family Formicidae, usually living in large colonies made up almost entirely of flightless females.

    A single ant can lift many times its own body weight.

    The colony's worker ants are all flightless females sharing one nest.

  2. 2
    feather cleaningverbintransitive
    To rub ants or other insects over the body or feathers, possibly as a way of removing parasites or cleaning.

    Crows ant by rubbing crushed insects through their wing feathers.

    The starling anted vigorously, pressing ants against its outstretched wings.

    Note

    An ornithologist's verb, made by turning the insect into an action. It is fully regular: birds ant, a starling anted, and the behavior itself is anting. Eloise Potter and Doris Hauser, writing in 1974 on anting and sunbathing in relation to molting, observed that wild birds ant most often in humid weather, especially right after heavy summer rain.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • The ornithological verb ant is based on the insect noun. en.wiktionary.org
    • Eloise Potter and Doris Hauser published a paper about anting, sunbathing and molting in 1974. digitalcommons.usf.edu
    • Their paper states that wild birds ant most frequently in high humidity, particularly immediately after heavy summer rainfall. en.wiktionary.org

Less common meaning

  1. 3
    nounrare
    A program that automatically crawls the Web, following links from page to page to gather and index information.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English amete, from Old English ǣmete ("ant"), which goes back to a Proto-West Germanic word of debated origin, probably meaning "biting-thing" or "cutter," built from roots meaning "off, away" and "to cut." It is related to German Ameise and Scots emmot ("ant").

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

  • Ant descends through Middle English amete from Old English ǣmete, meaning ant. en.wiktionary.org
  • The Old English word descends from a reconstructed Proto-West Germanic word. en.wiktionary.org
  • Ant is related to German Ameise and Scots emmot, both meaning ant. en.wiktionary.org