Sowbug

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small crustacean resembling a bug, commonly found in moist habitats, and identified by its segmented, flattened body and multiple legs
2. This terrestrial creature from the order Isopoda thrives in damp environments and exhibits a distinct segmented structure with numerous legs
3. A land-dwelling member of the Isopoda order that has a flattened, segmented body and is typically found in wet spaces

Etymology: The woodlouse, the grey armoured creature that rolls into a ball under a stone, gets its name from a pig. Middle English "sowe" meant both "sow," the female pig, and "woodlouse," and English speakers paired it with "bug," a general word for small creepy creatures. The result is a compound that literally reads as "pig bug," even though the animal is a crustacean and has nothing to do with swine. The logic behind the comparison is easy to reconstruct from the animal itself. A sow is a plump, stocky, grunting figure, and a woodlouse has a similarly rounded, segmented body that looks like a small armoured pig when it curls up or ambles through damp leaf litter. Medieval speakers reached for the farmyard animal to name a creature they saw in the same rough, earthy places.