Meaning

noun social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers

originEtymology tree Proto-West Germanic *āmaitijā Old English ǣmete Middle English ampte English ant From Middle English ampte, amte, emete, amete, from Old English ǣmete (“ant”), from Proto-West Germanic *āmaitijā (literally “biting-thing, cutter”), of uncertain and debated origin (q.v.), but probably from Proto-Germanic *ē- (“off, away”) + *maitaną (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂y- (“to…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0