Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

weevil

/ˈwiːvɪl/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.73 in modern English

Syllables: wee-vil
IPA: /ˈwiːvɪl/

12

Scrabble Score

6

Letters

2

Syllables

5

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Any of many tens of thousands of species of herbivorous beetles, ranging in size from tiny to large, in the superfamily Curculionoidea, the most characteristic species having the head projecting in a distinctive snout with the mouthparts at the tip.

noun

Any of many tens of thousands of species of herbivorous beetles of various sizes, in the family Curculionidae within the superfamily Curculionoidea.

noun

Any of many similar, but more distantly related, beetles such as the biscuit weevil (Stegobium paniceum).

noun

A loathsome person.

Derogatory

Example Sentences

"But you accuse other men of villainy with too easy a tongue, you weevil. I have never wanted you in this matter, and I have said so."
"Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms."

Etymology

From Middle English wevel, from Old English wifel (“beetle”), from Proto-West Germanic *wibil, from Proto-Germanic *wibilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *webʰel-, from *(h₁)webʰ- (“to wave, to weave”), said to be from the woven appearance of a weevil’s larval case, + *-el-, *-l̥- (diminutive or attributive suffix); see also wave and weave. Compare Old Saxon *wivil (“beetle”); Middle Low German wevel; Old High German wibil, wipil (modern German Wiebel (“beetle; chafer”)); Lithuanian vãbalas (“beetle; weevil”); Old Norse vifill, as in tordyfill (“dung beetle, scarab”) (whence Dutch tortwevel; Icelandic tordýfill, Norwegian tordivel, Old English tordwifel, Swedish tordyvel); dialectal Russian ве́блица (véblica, “intestinal worm”).

Origin

Source language: Middle English

Word Breakdown

Root: wevel, wifel, *wibil, *wibilaz, *webʰel-

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /ˈwiːvɪl/
British English: /ˈwiːv(ə)l/

Usage

Derogatory

Inflected Forms

weevils (plural)

Derived Forms

weevily

Phrases

acorn weevil alfalfa weevil apple blossom weevil apple flea weevil apple weevil ash weevil banana root weevil banana weevil

Synonyms

snout beetle true weevil nunu

Rhymes With

evil medieval retrieval upheaval primeval leavell mediaeval nominatival longeval

Questions

How do you pronounce weevil?: The recorded pronunciation is /ˈwiːvɪl/.
What does weevil mean?: Any of many tens of thousands of species of herbivorous beetles, ranging in size from tiny to large, in the superfamily Curculionoidea, the most characteristic species having the head projecting in a distinctive snout with the mouthparts at the tip.
Where does weevil come from?: It is traced to Middle English.

How to pronounce weevil

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “weevil”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/ˈwiːvɪl/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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