worming

present participle of worm
1
as in encroaching
to advance gradually beyond the usual or desirable limits neighborhoods worming into lands reserved for wildlife

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2
as in sneaking
to introduce in a gradual, secret, or clever way over a period of several years, the undercover agent was able to worm his way into the drug kingpin's confidence

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3
as in creeping
to move slowly with the body close to the ground the cat silently wormed along the ground as it snuck up on the bird

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of worming After a series of personal setbacks, Ingrid moves to Los Angeles to be closer to Taylor, masterminding their meeting and worming her way into her inner circle. — Brianna Zigler, Entertainment Weekly, 15 July 2026 The best success comes using it in jungle-thick cover, worming a minnow down between uncooperative branches. — John Phillips, Outdoor Life, 14 May 2026 In terms of the complex set design — which looks like a facsimile of the same passage over and over but with subtle differences worming their way in — Kawamura and his team built two identical corridors for cinematographer Keisuke Imamura to follow the actors through, third- and first-person-style. — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 15 Apr. 2026 Clara ends up moving to the small town and worming her way into everyone’s hearts. — Literary Hub, 12 Dec. 2025 Traitors is worming its way in there. — Mckinley Franklin, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for worming
Verb
  • Meanwhile over 100 Palestinian communities have been displaced or erased by the settler violence and the ever-encroaching sheep.
    — Lesley Stahl, CBS News, 11 Oct. 2026
  • Against encroaching social upheavals, the sovereign was resolutely the center of a mercantilist universe.
    — Sophie Landres, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • At 15, Mariana de Miguel was already sneaking into Mexico City’s nightlife with a fake ID, saving money to see the bands that shaped her imagination.
    — Isabela Raygoza, Billboard, 9 Oct. 2026
  • Imagine sneaking into a math library and combing through every mathematical text ever written.
    — Lyndie Chiou, Scientific American, 22 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • Carr takes a beat to scan the field, no doubt noticing three corners in press and an extra safety creeping toward the line.
    — Nick Baumgardner, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
  • But there was something else that was creeping into his head.
    — Andy Martinez, Chicago Tribune, 25 Sep. 2026
Verb
  • The show revolved around Crockett and Tubbs, two undercover detectives infiltrating South Florida’s criminal underworld.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Plus, even if a company isn’t intentionally using your data to train their models, one of their many agents could always go rogue, infiltrating company data and hoovering up individual users’ conversations with their chatbots.
    — Peter Hall, Scientific American, 13 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • Researchers have developed a paper-thin foot membrane that lets crawling microrobots harvest electricity directly from the ground beneath them, ditching heavy onboard batteries by turning metal and silicon surfaces into an active power source.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 8 Oct. 2026
  • Traffic cameras showed that northbound traffic was bumper-to-bumper and crawling along I-35 before being detoured from the highway.
    — Kansas City Star, Kansas City Star, 7 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • The resolution does not specify a schedule for inserting discrete one-hour corrections.
    — Vahe Peroomian, The Conversation, 8 Oct. 2026
  • French design firm Gilles & Boissier helped design the 21 guestrooms, inserting green spaces filled with palm trees and other tropical flora to make each living space feel ultra-private.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 6 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • Those facilities include long plastic silobags snaking across fields and towering metal grain elevators that are themselves increasingly vulnerable to military strikes.
    — Jenni Reid, CNBC, 10 Oct. 2026
  • By Wednesday afternoon, the line for visitor passes to get on base for the ship’s homecoming stretched several hundred feet, snaking across the lawn in front of the building and doubling back on itself.
    — Maxwell Adler, Vanity Fair, 8 Oct. 2026
Verb
  • But a few months later, at her 18-month appointment, the standard graph that plotted a child’s weight against their age showed her weight slipping off the curve.
    — Raj Panjabi, Time, 13 Oct. 2026
  • If one hook isn’t enough to keep the bag from slipping, place another one on the opposite side.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 10 Oct. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Worming.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/worming. Accessed 14 Oct. 2026.

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