different between weevil vs weevily

English

Etymology

From Middle English wevel, from Old English wifel (“beetle”), from Proto-West Germanic *wibil, from Proto-Germanic *wibilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *web?el-, from *(h?)web?- (“to wave, to weave”), said to be from the woven appearance of a weevil’s larval case, + *-el-, *-l?- (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 ???????? (véblica, “intestinal worm”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?wi?v(?)l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?wi?v?l/
• Rhymes: -i?v?l
• Hyphenation: wee?vil

Noun

weevil (plural weevils)

1. Any of several small herbivorous beetles in the superfamily Curculionoidea, many having a distinctive snout.
2. Any of several small herbivorous beetles in the family Curculionidae belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea.
3. Any of several similar but more distantly related beetles such as the biscuit weevil (Stegobium paniceum).
4. (figuratively, derogatory) A loathsome person.

Synonyms

• (beetle of the family Curculionidae): snout beetle, true weevil

Derived terms

Translations

References

English

Alternative forms

• weevilly

Etymology

weevil +? -y

Adjective

weevily (comparative more weevily, superlative most weevily)

1. Infested with or containing weevils.
   • 1813, The Literary Panorama, Volume 13, “State of Trade,” Lloyd’s Coffee House, June 21, p. 1037,^[1]

     A considerable portion of the rice now on hand is of inferior quality, and weevily; it gives distaste in families, and few domestics make sufficiently good use of their eyes to pick it carefully.

   • 1893, Albert Paine, “Weevily Wheat” in Rhymes by Two Friends, Fort Scott, Kansas, p. 112,^[2]

     O, I’ll have none of your weevily wheat,

     And I’ll have none of your barley,

     O, I’ll have none of your weevily wheat

     To bake a cake for Charlie.

   • 1950, C. S. Forester, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, London: Michael Joseph, “The Penalty of Failure,”^[3]

     […] Hornblower remembered the stuffy dark midshipman’s berth, the smells and the creakings, the bitter cold nights, turning out in response to the call for all hands, the weevilly bread and the wooden beef, and he yearned for them all, with the sick feeling of hopeless longing.

   • 2011, Guy Vanderhaeghe, A Good Man, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Chapter 9, p. 139,^[4]

     Hind had made his fortune provisioning railway construction gangs and lakeboat crews with the very cheapest of weevily foodstuffs.