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louse

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louse

Parasitic insect that lives on mammals. It has a flat, segmented body without wings, and a tube attached to the head, used for sucking blood from its host. (Order Anoplura.)

Some lice occur on humans, including the head louse (Pediculus capitis) and the body louse (P. corporis), a typhus carrier. Pediculosis is a skin disease caused by infestation of lice. Most mammals have a species of lice adapted to living on them. Biting lice belong to a different order of insects (Mallophaga) and feed on the skin, feathers, or hair. Each year 14 million children in the USA alone suffer from head lice.



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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eye, much better than those of a European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine.
Gulliver's Travels by Swift, Jonathan View in context
"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.
War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo View in context
Yes--you must answer for it all because you turned up like this, because I am a blackguard, because I am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most envious of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than I am, but, the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while I shall always be insulted by every louse, that is my doom
Notes from the Underground by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor View in context
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