Pl. wood-lice. [f. WOOD sb.1 + LOUSE sb.]

1

  1.  A small isopod crustacean of the genus Oniscus or family Oniscidæ; esp. the common species O. asellus, found in old wood, under stones, etc., and having the property of rolling itself up into a ball; also called † cheeselip, hog-louse, slater, sow-bug, etc.

2

1611.  Cotgr., s.v. Anthoine, The vermine called, a Ches-lop, or Wood-louse.

3

1663.  Boyle, Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos., II. 154. Those vile Insects commonly called in English, Wood-lice, or Sows.

4

1725.  Swift, Wood an Insect, 3. An Insect they call a Wood-Louse, That folds up itself in itself for a House.

5

1844.  Hood, Haunted House, 177. The wood-louse dropped and rolled into a ball.

6

1869.  Mrs. I. L. Bishop, Notes on Old Edinb., 11. The walls were black and rotten, and alive with woodlice.

7

  2.  Locally or occas. applied to various other small invertebrates found in woodwork or in woods, or resembling the crustacean described in 1.

8

  a.  A white ant or termite. b. A species of infusorian. c. One or more species of mite or other parasite. d. Various insects of the family Psocidæ, as the book-louse and death-watch. e. A milleped of the family Glomeridæ; a pill-milleped.

9

1666.  J. Davies, Hist. Caribby Isles, 149. A kind of Ant … bred of rotten wood, and thence some call them Wood-lice.

10

1769.  Ellis, in Phil. Trans., LIX. 150. The volvox oniscus, or wood-louse.

11

1770.  J. R. Forster, trans. Kalm’s Trav. N. Amer. (1772), II. 133. Wood-lice (Acarus Americanus, Linn.) abound here.

12

1781.  [see wood-ant, WOOD sb.1 10 b].

13

1819.  D. B. Warden, Acc. United States, I. 496. Musquitoes and wood-lice [note, Acarus Americanus] are most troublesome in thickly wooded vallies. Ibid., II. 525. The wood louse, or Chigo, or Bete Rouge, (Acanus sanguinis).

14

1825.  Jamieson, Wood-louse, a book-worm.

15

1863.  Wood, Illustr. Nat. Hist., III. 631. The Great Sea-slater or Sea-woodlouse. Ibid., 632. The well-known Pill-woodlouse.

16

  3.  attrib.

17

1796.  Stedman, Surinam, II. xxv. 234. The … bird, which … the negroes called woodo-louso-fowlo, from its feeding on wood-lice. Ibid. (Illustration), The Yellow Woodpecker or Wood-louse fowl.

18

1817.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xxiii. (1818), II. 307. The woodlouse tribe (Oniscidæ).

19

1854.  A. Adams, etc., Man. Nat. Hist., 267. Woodlouse-Millipedes (Glomeridæ).

20

1859.  P. P. Carpenter, in Rep. Smithsonian Instit. (1860), 207. Chitonidæ or Woodlouse shells.

21