hair eel

1 definition found

hair eel - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Gordius \Gor"di*us\, n. [NL. See Gordian, 1.] (Zool.)
     A genus of long, slender, nematoid worms, parasitic in
     insects until near maturity, when they leave the insect, and
     live in water, in which they deposit their eggs; -- called
     also hair eel, hairworm, and hair snake, from the
     absurd, but common and widely diffused, notion that they are
     metamorphosed horsehairs.
     [1913 Webster]