ANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ant mean? 

• ANT (noun)
  The noun ANT has 1 sense:

1. social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers

  Familiarity information: ANT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

ant; emmet; pismire

Hypernyms ("ant" is a kind of...):

hymenopter; hymenopteran; hymenopteron; hymenopterous insect (insects having two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor specialized for stinging or piercing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ant"):

Monomorium pharaonis; pharaoh's ant; pharaoh ant (small red ant of warm regions; a common household pest)

little black ant; Monomorium minimum (tiny glossy black ant; nests outdoors but invades houses for food)

army ant; driver ant; legionary ant (tropical nomadic ant that preys mainly on other insects)

carpenter ant (ant that nests in decaying wood in which it bores tunnels for depositing eggs)

fire ant (omnivorous ant of tropical and subtropical America that can inflict a painful sting)

Formica rufa; wood ant (reddish-brown European ant typically living in anthills in woodlands)

slave ant (any of various ants captured as larvae and enslaved by another species)

slave-maker; slave-making ant (an ant that attacks colonies of other ant species and carries off the young to be reared as slave ants)

bulldog ant (any of the large fierce Australian ants of the genus Myrmecia)

Holonyms ("ant" is a member of...):

family Formicidae; Formicidae (ants)

 Context examples 

The team's future work includes examining how the ants use their mandibles in the field.

(Dracula Ant Found to Be Fastest Creature on Earth, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Actually a complex mixture of isomers, other chlorinated hydrocarbons, and by-products, chlordane is used in termite and ant control, and as a protective treatment for underground cables.

(Chlordane, NCI Thesaurus)

A taxonomic class of arthropods that includes praying mantises, dragonflies, grasshoppers, true bugs, flies, bees, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and beetles.

(Insect, NCI Thesaurus)

See them like ants upon the forecastle!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mirex was used as an insecticide against ants and as a fire-retardant for plastics, paint, rubber, paper and electrical appliances, but it is no longer produced or used in the US.

(Mirex, NCI Thesaurus)

Bee, wasp, and hornet stings and fire ant bites usually hurt.

(Insect Bites and Stings, NIH)

The two elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

"S'ant!" replied the young rebel, helping himself to the coveted 'cakie', and beginning to eat the same with calm audacity.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But at the same time, they found a reduction in the diversity of plants and ants in the same period, by 27 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.

(Fire control harms biodiversity in Brazilian savannah, SciDev.Net)