guinea worm

Questions about guinea worm

What does guinea worm mean?

guinea worm means "a painful and debilitating infestation contracted by drinking stagnant water contaminated with Guinea worm larvae that can mature inside a human's abdomen until the worm emerges through a painful blister in the person's skin". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for guinea worm?

Close synonyms include Guinea worm disease, dracunculiasis, Dracunculus medinensis. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is guinea worm a common word?

guinea worm is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.