wormhole means A hole burrowed by a worm. It carries an Arena rating of 1657, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, wormhole ranks #301 of 17,123 for Most Malleable Words, #330 of 17,130 for Most Ingenious Words, #467 of 17,116 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #931 of 17,113 for Most Elegant Words.
wormhole is pronounced /ˈwɝmˌhoʊl/.
Why “wormhole” is a great word
A hypothetical topological feature of spacetime, visualized as a tunnel connecting two separate points, which could allow for travel across vast cosmic distances. From worm + hole, by analogy with the way a worm might bore through an apple rather than crawl around its surface; the modern astrophysical sense was introduced in 1957 by physicist John Archibald Wheeler. Unlike a 'black hole' (a gravitational maw from which nothing returns) or a mundane 'tunnel' (dug through dirt and stone), a wormhole is a theoretical shortcut, a suture in the cosmos itself. It is the fold in a map that brings two distant edges to touching; it is the silent bridge across an abyss of light-years; it is the cosmic throat through which one might glimpse one's own past—a fragile testament to the human hope that geometry might one day conquer distance.
Etymology
First use appears c. 1594. From worm + hole. In the scientific sense, introduced by John Archibald Wheeler in 1957.
noun
- A hole burrowed by a worm.e.g.“To fill with worme-holes stately monuments.”
- A hypothetical shortcut between two points in spacetime, permitting faster-than-light travel and sometimes time travel.
- A location in a monitor program containing the address of a routine, allowing the user to substitute different functionality.
verb
- To make porous or permeable through the formation of small holes or tunnels.
Words closest in meaning
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