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Glite Dictionary
wood louse

wood louse

7.4
A small grey animal with a flat, segmented body that lives under damp logs or stones
  • noun
  • /wʊd laʊs/
  • UK
translation icon : cochinilla de humedad
  • While gardening, I found a wood louse hiding under a damp log.

Examples

  • Children often discover a wood louse when playing outside and lifting stones.

  • The wood louse scuttled quickly across the moist soil.

  • I couldn't imagine touching a wood louse, and ants seemed

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Synonyms

slater
vswood louse
  • UK
74 9.9

A small flat animal with a hard shell that lives in damp places

is the same animal but uses a different common name
woodlouse
vswood louse
  • UK
8.8

A small grey animal with many legs that lives in damp places and curls into a ball when touched

is identical in meaning but written as two separate words

Surface Forms

wood louse singular
wood lice plural

Morphology

wood + louse

The noun is a straightforward compound of 'wood' + 'louse', so a learner who knows 'wood' (place/material with trees) and 'louse' (a small parasitic/bug-like creature) can infer it refers to a small bug-like animal associated with wood or damp places. This N+N compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and does not require specialist biological knowledge to grasp the general meaning.

Etymology

Wood louse gets its name from the simple picture of a tiny animal living in wood that looked like a louse to people long ago. That's why the name means 'a small, flat animal with a body in sections that you find in damp places under logs or stones'.