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# silkworm

«silkworm» in Mova's school dictionary: **the caterpillar of the silk moth, which spins a cocoon of…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a silkworm, silkworms)

### meaning for a pupil

A silkworm is the caterpillar of the silk moth, which spins a cocoon of fine silk thread; people use this thread to make silk cloth. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In science and history lessons silkworms show life cycles (egg, caterpillar, cocoon/pupa, moth) and the story of silk: it was first made in ancient China, which kept the secret for a long time, and silk was traded along the Silk Road. Silkworms eat only mulberry leaves. One cocoon can be made of a single thread up to about 1 km long. To get the silk, the cocoons are usually boiled, which kills the pupa — some people prefer «peace silk». Phrases: «silkworm cocoon», «mulberry leaves», «the Silk Road».

### examples

- Silkworms eat only mulberry leaves. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x1)
- The silkworm spun a white cocoon around itself. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x2)
- Silk cloth is made from the thread of silkworms. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x3)
- Ancient China kept silkworms secret for centuries. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x4)
- Our class watched silkworms turn into moths. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x5)
- A single silkworm cocoon is made of one very long thread. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x6)
- Silkworm moths cannot fly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/#x7)

### note

Plural «silkworms». Trap: a silkworm is not a worm; it is a caterpillar (an insect larva). Silk moths have been kept by people for so long that they can no longer live in the wild.

### In the corpora

- [They are silkworms, and people in China have kept them for thousands of years.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/1/)
- [Silkworms are the caterpillars of the domestic silk moth, and they eat almost nothing but fresh mulberry leaves.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/8/)
- [A silkworm grows thousands of times heavier in about a month and sheds its skin four times, because old skin cannot stretch.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/11/)
- [For a long time making silk was a secret, and carrying silkworm eggs out of China was forbidden.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/14/)
- [A silkworm has six true, pointed legs at the front, like every insect, and ten soft stumpy legs further back.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/400-the-big-biology-quiz-part-4-everything-from-lessons-301-to-399/15/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «silkworm» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/silkworm/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.