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Louse   /laʊs/   Listen
noun
Louse  n.  (pl. lice)  (Zool.)
1.
Any one of numerous species of small, wingless, suctorial, parasitic insects belonging to a tribe (Pediculina), now usually regarded as degraded Hemiptera. To this group belong of the lice of man and other mammals; as, the head louse of man (Pediculus capitis), the body louse (Pediculus vestimenti), and the crab louse (Phthirius pubis), and many others. See Crab louse, Dog louse, Cattle louse, etc., under Crab, Dog, etc.
2.
Any one of numerous small mandibulate insects, mostly parasitic on birds, and feeding on the feathers. They are known as Mallophaga, or bird lice, though some occur on the hair of mammals. They are usually regarded as degraded Pseudoneuroptera. See Mallophaga.
3.
Any one of the numerous species of aphids, or plant lice. See Aphid.
4.
Any small crustacean parasitic on fishes. See Branchiura, and Ichthvophthira. Note: The term is also applied to various other parasites; as, the whale louse, beelouse, horse louse.
Louse fly (Zool.), a parasitic dipterous insect of the group Pupipara. Some of them are wingless, as the bee louse.
Louse mite (Zool.), any one of numerous species of mites which infest mammals and birds, clinging to the hair and feathers like lice. They belong to Myobia, Dermaleichus, Mycoptes, and several other genera.



verb
Louse  v. t.  To clean from lice. "You sat and loused him."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Louse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Harrison, a well cracked louse— So small a tenant of so big a house! He joyed in fighting with his eyes (his fist Prudently pendent from a peaceful wrist) And loved to loll on the Parnassian mount, His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count,— What poetry he'd written but for lack ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... table, above the head of a man whom he placed there because he believed him happy, and in this manner wished to make him feel what passed unceasingly in himself. M. du Maine, who willingly expressed in pleasantry the most serious things, frankly said to his familiars, that he was "like a louse between two fingernails" (the Princes of the blood and the peers), by which he could not fail to be cracked if he did not take care! This reflection troubled the excess of his pleasure, and that of the greatness and the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... or with Paris green showered in water. The round-headed apple-tree borer is to be cut out, and the eggs excluded with a sheet of tarred paper around the stem, and slightly sunk in the earth. For the oyster-shell bark louse, apply linseed oil. Paris green, in water, will kill the canker worm. Tobacco water does the work for plant lice. Peach-tree borers are excluded with tarred or felt paper, and cut out with a knife. Jar the grape flea beetle on an inverted umbrella early in the morning. Among small-fruit insects, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you can't see the tick on yourself. You're the only one that thinks we're so funny; look at your professor, he's older than you are, and we're good enough for him, but you're only a brat with the milk still in your nose and all you can prattle is 'ma' or 'mu,' ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... their degrees, it is a bosom thought: - Not in man alone, for we trace it in dogs and cats whom we know fairly well, and doubtless some similar point of honour sways the elephant, the oyster, and the louse, of whom we know so little: - But in man, at least, it sways with so complete an empire that merely selfish things come second, even with the selfish: that appetites are starved, fears are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest shrinks from ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson


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