a. rare. [f. VERMI- + -PAROUS. Cf. Sp. and Pg. vermiparo.]
1. Producing young, or produced as young, in the form of small worms or maggots.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 135. We deny not that many animals are vermiparous, begetting themselves at a distance. Ibid., 297. In creatures oviparous, as birds and fishes; in vermiparous, as Flies, Locusts, and Gnats; in animals also viviparous, as Swine and Conies. Ibid. (1650), (ed. 2), V. v. 203. The same … may be also true in some vermiparous exclusions.
1765. Treatise on Dom. Pigeons, 14. All animals are distinguished into three sorts: oviparous,… viviparous,… and vermiparous, or such as are formed from a worm.
1910. D’A. W. Thompson, trans. Aristotle’s Hist. Anim., 538. In oviparous and vermiparous creatures … the female is larger than the male.
2. Producing verminous parasites.
1860. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 8), XXI. 974/2. Very few avertebrated animals are vermiparous, while there is probably no species of vertebrate that is exempted from parasites.
Hence † Vermiparousness, ‘worm-breeding quality’ (Bailey, 1727, vol. II.). Obs.–0
