angleworm

• angle worm, angle-worm

angle +‎ worm

• IPA^(key): /ˈæŋ.ɡəlˌwɜɹm/

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angleworm (plural angleworms)

1. (Northern US) An earthworm, used as or destined to be used as bait to catch fish.
   • a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “In the Garden”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 140:

     A bird came down the walk : / He did not know I saw ; / He bit an angle-worm in halves / And ate the fellow, raw.

   • 1898, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Precipitate Cock and the Unappreciated Pearl:

     He turned again to where his clan
     In one astounding tangle
     With eager haste together ran
     To slay the helpless angle

• nightcrawler
• red wiggler

• Low German, lawmonger