# ant

Pronunciation: say "ANT" /ænt/

## Noun

1. A small insect of the family Formicidae, usually living in large colonies made up almost entirely of flightless females.
   - Simple: A small insect that lives in large groups and builds nests in the ground.
   - _A single ant can lift many times its own body weight._
   - _The colony's worker ants are all flightless females sharing one nest._

## Verb

2. To rub ants or other insects over the body or feathers, possibly as a way of removing parasites or cleaning.
   - Simple: To rub insects, especially ants, onto the body, which some birds do to clean their feathers.
   - _Crows ant by rubbing crushed insects through their wing feathers._
   - _The starling anted vigorously, pressing ants against its outstretched wings._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A program that automatically crawls the Web, following links from page to page to gather and index information.

## 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").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ant (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).