as in nymph
a young wingless often wormlike form (as a grub or caterpillar) that hatches from the egg of many insects the larva looked ugly, but it was destined to hatch into a beautiful butterfly

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Examples of larva in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web In the game, one player is the ant and wasp, the other player is the beetle larva and adult. Lesley Evans Ogden, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 Jan. 2024 All but one hatch early and cruise the host’s body, killing competing parasites so that the last larva to hatch has a habitat all to itself. Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019 In his metaphor, the larva represented the data that had gone into training modern neural nets; the dragonfly stood for the agile A.I. that had been created from it. Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023 In 60 percent of those nests not a single larva survived, most commonly because of whole-clutch cannibalism: the male had gobbled up hundreds of eggs. Carolyn Wilke, Scientific American, 1 Oct. 2023 See all Example Sentences for larva 

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'larva.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Thesaurus Entries Near larva

Cite this Entry

“Larva.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/larva. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on larva

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!