caterpillar
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A wormlike and often brightly colored and hairy or spiny larva of a butterfly or moth.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
katuhpihlerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkætəpɪlɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A wormlike and often brightly colored and hairy or spiny larva of a butterfly or moth
The larva of a butterfly or moth; leafworm.
A vehicle with a caterpillar track; a crawler.
verb
intransitive
To move along slowly, drawing one's body up, in the manner of a caterpillar.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A wormlike and often brightly colored and hairy or spiny larva of a butterfly or moth
Used this way, caterpillar is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An endless metal belt on which tracked vehicles move over the ground.
An endless metal belt on which tracked vehicles move over the ground.
Larvae of a gregarious North American moth that spins a web resembling a carpet rather than a tent.
Larva of a lappet moth.
Moth whose gregarious larvae spin webs resembling carpets.
The larvae of moths that build and live in communal silken webs in orchard and shade trees.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.