Larvae

How to spell larvae

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce larvae

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does larvae mean?

1. nounThe active immature forms of insects or other animals, hatched from eggs and differing markedly from the adult.

Larvae in a sentence

• The pond water was full of mosquito larvae wriggling near the surface.

• Under the microscope the biologist counted dozens of tiny larvae.

Where does larvae come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of larva, a word taken directly from Latin where larva meant a ghost, a spectre, or a haunting spirit, and by extension a frightening mask worn to look like one. The leap to insects came in the eighteenth century when the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus chose the word for the immature, wormlike stage of an insect, the idea being that this early form was a kind of disguise or 'mask' hiding the adult creature that would later emerge. The plural keeps the original Latin pattern, swapping the feminine ending -a for -ae, which is exactly the spelling trap: English speakers expect a normal -s plural and are surprised by the -ae. The same Latin plural rule shapes other borrowed words such as antennae, vertebrae, and algae. Because the word was lifted whole from scientific Latin rather than passing through French, its spelling has stayed unusually faithful to the original.

How the word is built

• larv- (from Latin larva: ghost, mask)
• -ae (Latin feminine plural ending)