louse

1. Louse
   Any one of numerous small mandibulate insects, mostly parasitic on birds, and feeding on the feathers. They are known as Mallophaga, or bird lice, though some occur on the hair of mammals. They are usually regarded as degraded Pseudoneuroptera. See Mallophaga.
2. Louse
   Any one of the numerous species of aphids, or plant lice. See Aphid.
3. Louse
   Any small crustacean parasitic on fishes. See Branchiura, and Ichthvophthira.
4. Louse
   louz To clean from lice. "You sat and loused him."

1. (n) louse
   An insect or other small arthropod (as a crustacean) that infests other animals or plants, or an animal resembling such parasites: a name for a great variety of small creatures. Specifically— One of a class of small degraded parasitic hemipterous insects of the order Hemiptera and suborder Parasita; the Pediculina or Pediculidæ. These are the little wingless bugs most frequently called lice, infesting man and other animals as external parasites, in the hair or fur. They are haustellate, or furnished with a sucking-proboscis, which can be protruded and fixed in the skin of the host, the attachment being secured by little hooks; there are six legs with hooks for crawling and grappling; the general form is elliptical, most of the body consisting of the large jointed abdomen; the skin is so tough that when the louse is crushed it can be heard to crack. Such lice are oviparous and extremely prolific; their eggs, which mature very rapidly, are glued to hairs, and are known as nits. At least three kinds infest man. The head-louse, Pediculus capitis, living chiefly in the hair of the head, is the slenderest one of the three. The body-louse, Pediculus vestimenti, living in the hair of the body at large, and in the seams of the clothing, is less transparent than the former, with a grayish tint, and hence called grayback; myriads of these creatures are generated where people are crowded in unclean or unwholesome conditions, as in camps, jails, etc. The last kind, the crab-louse, Phthirius pubis or inguinalis, chiefly affects the hair of the pubis and perinæum, but may range all over the body; its shape is peculiar, as shown in the figure under crab-louse. Most mammals, if not all, have lice peculiar to themselves. Hæmatopinus is an extensive genus of such lice: H. vituli is found on cattle. A species of Hæmatomyzus affects elephants. Bats have a peculiar set of lice, constituting the family Polyctenidæ.
2. (n) louse
   Bird-lice are parasitic insects, of several hundred species, various genera, and several families, which some authors range with the foregoing in the order Hemiptera, but most place in the Pseudoneuroptera. They are known as the order or superfamily Mallophaga. They have mandibulate or biting mouth-parts, are wingless, and of very variable forms. They are by no means confined to birds, but infest mammals as well; almost every kind of bird and beast is infested by these creatures, sometimes several species to one host, and in such multitudes as to canse disease and death. Of these, such as infest domestic quadrupeds and birds belong to the genera Trichodectes, Docophorus, Nirmus, Goniocotes, Goniodes, Lipeurus, Trinotum, Colpopocephalum, Menopon, and Gyropus.
3. (n) louse
   The beaver harbors a remarkable louse, Platypsyllus castoris, a degraded clavicorn beetle, so peculiar as to have been made type of an order, Achreioptera.
4. (n) louse
   Insects have their own lice. Such are the bee-lice, or pupiparous dipterous insects of the family Braulidæ, order Diptera; and some of the lice of bats are similar dipterous insects, though wingless, of the family Nycteribiidæ. Bees, wasps, etc., are also infested by certain small parasitic heteromerous beetles in the form of lice, such as the wingless larvæ of Meloidæ, a species of which has been named Pediculus melittæ, and the whole family Stylopidæ. Insects affected by the latter are said to be stylopized. None of the foregoing lice are aquatic.
5. (n) louse
   Fishes, marine mammals. crustaceans, etc., are infested by a great variety of small degraded crustaceans, collectively known as fish-lice or Ichthyophthira. Most of these belong to a class or order Epizoa or Siphonostoma, or Lernæoidea; a few are cirripeds, as Rhizocephala. Whale-lice are Cyamidæ. Carpice are Argulidæ.
6. (n) louse
   Wood-lice are the terrestrial isopods of the family Oniscidæ, also called slaters, sow-bugs, etc. These are not parasites, but some of the aquatic isopods are fish-lice, as Cymothoidæ.
7. (n) louse
   Plants are infested by multitudes of small plant-sucking hemipters, known as plant-lice, and formerly collectively termed Phytophthiria: as the aphids, Aphididæ, some of which are also called gall-lice; the psyllids, Psyllidæ, called flea-lice and jumping plant-lice; and the scale-insects or Coccidæ, some of which are also known as bark-lice.
8. (n) louse
   Book-lice are pseudoneuropterous insects of the family Psocidæ, various species of which, as those of the genera Atropos and Clothilla, injure books.
9. (n) louse
   Certain mites or acarids are sometimes called lice, as the harvest-ticks, known as red-lice, the itch-mite or itch-louse, etc. For further information, see the compounded words, and also the technical names.
10. louse
    To clean from lice.
11. louse
    A Middle English variant of loose.

1. (n) Louse
   lows a common wingless parasitic insect, with a flat body, and short legs furnished with claws
2. (v.t) Louse
   (obs.) to remove lice from

sucking louse bird louse biting louse plant louse insect dirt ball

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lousy

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