A colorful American folk nickname for a rattlesnake — named for the distinctive buzzing rattle it produces as a warning before striking. The term is vivid, a little poetic, and captures exactly what makes rattlesnakes both terrifying and fascinating: that sound. Used colloquially across the American West and Southwest, buzzworm belongs to the long tradition of inventive vernacular names for dangerous wildlife.
The trail guide warned hikers to watch where they stepped because buzzworms liked to sun themselves on the rocks.
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(slang) rattlesnake.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.