vermifuge
adjective, noun
vermifuge is an adjective meaning “Acting as a drug to cause the expulsion or death of intestinal worms” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-E-R-M-I-F-U-G-E, and it appears about once in every 76 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does vermifuge mean?
adjective
- 1
datedActing as a drug to cause the expulsion or death of intestinal worms.
noun
- 1
datedA drug that causes the expulsion or death of intestinal worms, such as tapeworms.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of vermifuge
- more vermifuge comparative
- most vermifuge superlative
- vermifuges plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vermifuge?
Vermifuge appears about once in every 76 million words in written English, the 275,970th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does vermifuge come from?
Attested since about 1720, from Latin vermis (“worm”) + fugāre (“to cause to flee”). Compare -fuge.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).