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ant
1[ ant ]
noun
- any of numerous black, red, brown, or yellow social insects of the family Formicidae, of worldwide distribution especially in warm climates, having a large head with inner jaws for chewing and outer jaws for carrying and digging, and living in highly organized colonies containing wingless female workers, a winged queen, and, during breeding seasons, winged males, some species being noted for engaging in warfare, slavemaking, or the cultivation of food sources.
an't
2[ ant, ahnt, eynt ]
- Chiefly British Dialect. contraction of am not.
- Dialect. ain't.
ant-
3- variant of anti- before a vowel or h: antacid; anthelmintic .
-ant
4- a suffix forming adjectives and nouns from verbs, occurring originally in French and Latin loanwords ( pleasant; constant; servant ) and productive in English on this model; -ant has the general sense “characterized by or serving in the capacity of ” that named by the stem ( ascendant; pretendant ), especially in the formation of nouns denoting human agents in legal actions or other formal procedures ( tenant; defendant; applicant; contestant ). In technical and commercial coinages, -ant is a suffix of nouns denoting impersonal physical agents ( propellant; lubricant; deodorant ). In general, -ant can be added only to bases of Latin origin, with a very few exceptions, as coolant .
ant.
5abbreviation for
- antenna
- antonym.
Ant.
6abbreviation for
- Antarctica.
ant-
1ant
2/ ænt /
noun
- any small social insect of the widely distributed hymenopterous family Formicidae, typically living in highly organized colonies of winged males, wingless sterile females (workers), and fertile females (queens), which are winged until after mating See also army ant fire ant slave ant wood ant formic
- white antanother name for a termite
- have ants in one's pants slang.to be restless or impatient
-ant
4suffix forming adjectives
- causing or performing an action or existing in a certain condition; the agent that performs an action
protestant
pleasant
claimant
deodorant
servant
Other Words From
- antlike adjective
Word History and Origins
Origin of ant1
Word History and Origins
Origin of ant1
Origin of ant2
Idioms and Phrases
- have ants in one's pants, Slang. to be impatient or eager to act or speak.
Example Sentences
The most cooperative organisms like ants, bees, termites—or, if you want to compare mammals to mammals, the beautiful naked mole rats—aren’t renowned for their brilliance.
Yet while the cows’ bacteria merely inhabit the animals’ stomach, the bacteria in the ants live inside their gut cells as endosymbionts.
So the ants evolved to leave the ancestral germline as a “decoy” to attract the bacteria, Rajakumar said.
In exchange, the carpenter ants provide a protective cellular environment for the Blochmannia and transmit them to their offspring, ensuring the bacteria’s survival.
Bullet ant stings, he finds, are roughly 10 times more painful.
An Uber driver went on an anti-gay, ant-American rant before physically assaulting his passenger.
I was reducing everything to ant scale, the U.S. included—an ant White House, an ant CIA, an ant Congress, an ant Pentagon.
Strangely, he did this by diluting the sting of the ant scene.
In the U.S. view a small group—or cadre—of fierce red ants have taken power and are opposing the black-ant majority.
RAMON: (Seething with contempt) Secret ant landing strips, illegally established on foreign soil.
Her feet crush creeping things: there is a busy ant or blazoned beetle, with its back broken, writhing in the dust, unseen.
Pervenimvs huc (sicut ant numeratum est) vigesim secund Maij.
Because we are crowded here and there in the ant-hills of our cities, we dream that the world is full.
But Burguy explains that romant is a false form, due to confusion with words rightly ending in -ant.
The ant individual preserves its powers of observation and thought and may initiate new processes.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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