Meaning & use

centipede

noun·Academic

A many-legged, flat-bodied arthropod with one pair of legs on each body segment.

See it in a sentence

A centipede scurried quickly under the log when we lifted it.

Despite its name, a centipede rarely has exactly one hundred legs.

A note on using this word

Centipedes are predators with venomous claws, unlike the plant-eating, more rounded millipede.

Words with a similar meaning

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