# caterpillar

/ˈkætəˌpɪɫɝ/ (US) · /kˈætəpˌɪlɐ/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/caterpillar
Updated: 2026-08-15

## Senses

### 1. larva of a butterfly

noun · CEFR A2

a small, long creature with many legs that eats leaves and later becomes a butterfly or moth.

For teachers: the larval stage of a butterfly or moth, typically having a segmented body and multiple pairs of legs.

- The green caterpillar spent all afternoon eating the leaves in the garden.
- Biologists observed the caterpillar as it entered the pupal stage, eventually emerging as a monarch butterfly after several weeks.

### 2. tracked vehicle

noun · CEFR B2

a heavy vehicle, like a tractor, that moves on metal tracks instead of wheels.

For teachers: a vehicle equipped with caterpillar tracks, designed for movement over rough or soft terrain.

- The construction crew used a heavy caterpillar to move the piles of dirt.
- The heavy-duty caterpillar navigated the muddy excavation site with ease, where standard wheeled vehicles would have surely become stuck.

### 3. graph theory

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

a special kind of tree shape in math where all the points are close to a central line.

For teachers: a tree in which all nodes are within distance one of a central path.

- The professor explained how to identify a caterpillar in the network diagram.
- In graph theory, a caterpillar is a tree in which all vertices are within distance one of a central path graph.

### 4. greedy person

noun · CEFR C2 · Archaic

a person who takes too much money or resources from others.

For teachers: a rapacious or extortionate person who preys upon the community.

- The old stories described the greedy tax collector as a caterpillar of the commonwealth.
- The political pamphlet from the seventeenth century denounced the corrupt officials as caterpillars who consumed the wealth of the honest citizenry.

### 5. to move like a larva

verb · CEFR B2

to move your body slowly by pulling your back up and then stretching forward.

For teachers: to move in a manner resembling a caterpillar, characterized by rhythmic contraction and extension of the body.

- The toddler tried to caterpillar across the rug to reach his toy.
- The injured climber had to caterpillar slowly toward the edge of the clearing to signal for the rescue helicopter.

## Examples

- The green caterpillar eats the leaf slowly.
- We watched the fuzzy caterpillar crawl across the garden fence before it disappeared into the grass.
- The vibrant caterpillar, adorned with warning colours, feeds voraciously on milkweed leaves before pupating into a monarch butterfly.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.