A worm or larva that lives in or on human hands, or a parasitic creature associated with manual work.
Compound of 'hand' (Old English 'hand') and 'worm' (Old English 'wyrm'), dating to folk naturalism when people categorized parasites by affected body parts.
Medieval and early modern texts mention 'handworms' as explanations for mysterious hand ailments—though we now know these were likely fungal infections or insect infestations, the word shows how people literally named diseases by location before germ theory.
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