worm [OE] In Old English worm was spelled wyrm or wurm. The first meaning was ‘serpent’ or ‘dragon’, a sense still occasionally found in dialect and preserved in folk tales such as ‘The Lambton Worm’. Worm came to mean ‘crawling animal, reptile, or insect’ and then, in about 1100, an earthworm or similar creature. In a can of worms [M20th] the worms are probably maggots—think of a fisherman on a riverbank with his wriggling bait tin. The worm has turned means ‘a meek person has retaliated after being pushed too far’. The original form, in 1546, was ‘Tread a worm on the tail and it must turn again’.