louse

Other forms of louse

plural

lice

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about louse

What does louse mean?

louse means "wingless usually flattened bloodsucking insect parasitic on warm-blooded animals". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in louse?

louse has 1 syllable: louse. In IPA it is /ˈlaʊs/.

What is another word for louse?

Close synonyms include sucking louse, worm, insect, dirt ball, plant louse. 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 louse a common word?

louse is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.