Ohrwurm.
earwig (any insect of the order Dermaptera)
Meaning & usage
earwig (any insect of the order Dermaptera)
earworm (a tune that pops up in one's memory all of the time)
Where this word comes from
From Ohr (“ear”) + Wurm (“worm”). In ancient times, dried and ground animals of the order Dermaptera were used to treat ear diseases, which resulted in the Late Latin name auricula. Later the name was in error explained as “worm that enters the ear”. Consider Dutch oorworm, English earwig, Danish ørentvist; French perce-oreille, Romanian urechelniță; Russian уховёртка (uxovjórtka), Serbo-Croatian uholaža, Slovak ucholak; Lithuanian auslinda (all are cognates via Proto-Indo-European *h₂ows-). Also consider Mongolian чихүүр хорхой (čixüür xorxoj) (<+ чих (čix)), Turkish kulağakaçan (<+ kulak).
Try it on your idea.
Ohrwurm has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.