LARVA (larvae)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: larvae   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does larva mean? 

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

1. the immature free-living form of most invertebrates and amphibians and fish which at hatching from the egg is fundamentally unlike its parent and must metamorphose

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• LARVA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The immature free-living form of most invertebrates and amphibians and fish which at hatching from the egg is fundamentally unlike its parent and must metamorphose

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

animal; animate being; beast; brute; creature; fauna (a living organism characterized by voluntary movement)

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

aphid lion; aphis lion (carnivorous larva of lacewing flies)

polliwog; pollywog; tadpole (a larval frog or toad)

grub (a soft thick wormlike larva of certain beetles and other insects)

bot (botfly larva; typically develops inside the body of a horse or sheep or human)

leptocephalus (slender transparent larva of eels and certain fishes)

nymph (a larva of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis (as the dragonfly or mayfly))

caterpillar (a wormlike and often brightly colored and hairy or spiny larva of a butterfly or moth)

caseworm (insect larva that constructs a protective case around its body)

dobson; hellgrammiate (large brown aquatic larva of the dobsonfly; used as fishing bait)

ascidian tadpole (free-swimming larva of ascidians; they have a tail like a tadpole that contains the notochord)

ant lion; antlion; doodlebug (the larva of any of several insects)

jointworm; strawworm (larva of chalcid flies injurious to the straw of wheat and other grains)

wiggler; wriggler (larva of a mosquito)

mealworm (the larva of beetles of the family Tenebrionidae)

wireworm (wormlike larva of various elaterid beetles; feeds on roots of many crop plants)

cercaria (tadpole-shaped parasitic larva of a trematode worm; tail disappears in adult stage)

bladder worm (encysted saclike larva of the tapeworm)

Derivation:

larval (immature of its kind; especially being or characteristic of immature insects in the newly hatched wormlike feeding stage)

larval (relating to or typical of a larva)

 Context examples 

B laterosporus is found in soil, water, insects and their larvae, and may be pathogenic in humans.

(Brevibacillus laterosporus, NCI Thesaurus)

A family of double-stranded DNA viruses that replicate in lepidopteran larvae.

(Baculoviridae, NCI Thesaurus)

Wondji said control efforts, such as eliminating mosquito larvae that inhabit standing pools of water, can also be redoubled.

(Malaria-carrying Mosquitoes Becoming Resistant to Bed Nets in Southern Africa, VOA)

In order to kill a mosquito’s larvae and block its spread in water containers, researchers developed a system based on the use of essential oil as a natural larvicide.

(Thyme oil and corn starch prove deadly for mosquito larvae, SciDev.Net)

The larvae enter the body through the intestine.

(Dracunculiasis, NCI Thesaurus)

The study of how a multicellular organism develops from its early immature forms (e.g., zygote, larva, embryo) into an adult.

(Developmental Biology, NCI Thesaurus)

The larvae may be seen just beneath the skin or passing through the conjunctiva.

(Loiasis, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

A parasitic infection caused by tapeworm larvae of Echinococcus.

(Echinococcosis, NCI Thesaurus)

This allele, which encodes lethal(2) giant larvae protein homolog 1 protein, plays a role in the regulation of mitotic spindle orientation, cell proliferation, neuroepithelial cell differentiation, tumor suppression and cytoskeletal maintenance.

(LLGL1 wt Allele, NCI Thesaurus)

That’s allowing drifting coral larvae to settle and grow in new regions.

(Coral reefs shifting away from equatorial waters, National Science Foundation)