Happy Tuesday! The word of the day is
- Larva -
pronounced [lahr-vuh]
pronounced [lahr-vuh]
noun, plural -vae
1. Entomology. the immature, wingless, feeding stage of an insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis.
2. any animal in an analogous immature form.
3. the young of any invertebrate animal.
4. larvae, Roman Antiquity. malignant ghosts, as lemures.
Origin
1650s, "a ghost, specter," from L. larva (pl. larvae), earlier larua "ghost," also "mask;" applied in biological sense 1768 by Linnaeus because immature forms of insects "mask" the adult forms. On the double sense of the Latin word, Carlo Ginzburg, among other students of mythology and folklore, has commented on "the well-nigh universal association between masks and the spirits of the dead."
Can be confused with
lava
Can be confused with
lava
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/larva
