Pismires

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Small social insects that live in colonies, often used as a figure for busy, hardworking creatures
2. Tiny colony-dwelling insects known for their tireless labor and organized community life
3. Ants regarded as a group, typically used in old or literary writing to describe industrious little creatures

Etymology: Pismires are ants, and the name is startlingly blunt. It comes from Middle English "pissemyre", built from "piss" and "mire", the old word for ant. The insects were named for the smell of their nests, which gives off a sharp, urine-like odour when disturbed. The same idea survives in "pissant", a later slang term for a petty or insignificant person, which uses the same root. Because "pismire" is a plural form here, the singular is "pismire", and the plural simply adds the usual -s. The word sounds more like a crude joke than a scientific term, but for centuries it was an ordinary name for ants in English, so the bluntness was not considered vulgar by those who used it. The same compound appears in other languages too. Old Frisian had "pisimme", Dutch has "pismiere", and Swedish has "pissmyra", all describing the same insect in the same blunt way.

Synonyms: ant, emmet