King James Bible Dictionary

(Heb. nemalah, from a word meaning to creep, cut off, destroy), referred to in Proverbs 6:6; 30:25, as distinguished for its prudent habits. Many ants in Palestine feed on animal substances, but others draw their nourishment partly or exclusively from vegetables. To the latter class belongs the ant to which Solomon refers. This ant gathers the seeds in the season of ripening, and stores them for future use; a habit that has been observed in ants in Texas, India, and Italy.

Proverbs 6:6-8; Proverbs 30:25

(Heb. nemalah). This insect is mentioned twice in the Old Testament: in (Proverbs 6:6; 30:25) In the former of these passages the diligence of this insect is instanced by the wise man as an example worthy of imitation; in the second passage the ant's wisdom is especially alluded to; for these insects "though they be little on the earth, are exceeding wise." (For a long time European commentators and naturalists denied that ants stored up grain for future use, as was asserted in Proverbs but while this is true of most of the 104 European species, two of those species do lay up food, and are called harvesting ants . Like species have been found in Texas and South America, and are known to exist in Palestine. They show many other proofs of their skill. Some of them build wonderful houses; these are often several stories high, sometimes five hundred times the height of the builders, with rooms, corridors, and vaulted roofs supported by pillars. Some species keep a kind of cows; others have a regular army of soldiers; some keep slaves

"No closer imitation of the ways of man could be found in the entire animal economy." (See Encyc. Brit.) McCook's "The Honey Ants" gives many curious facts about the habits of this peculiar kind of ant, and of the harvesting ants of the American plains.

ED.)

AN'T, in old authors, is a contraction of an it, that is if it. [See An.]

ANT, in our vulgar dialect, as in the phrases, I ant you ant he ant we ant etc., is undoubtedly a contraction of the Danish er, ere, the substantive verb in the present tense of the Indicative Mode. These phrases are doubtless legitimate remains of the Gothic dialect.

'ANT, noun

An emmet; a pismire. Ants constitute a genus of insects of the hymenopteral order, of which the characteristics are; a small scale between the breast and belly, with a joint so deep that the animal appears as if almost cut in two. The females, and the neuter or working ants, which have no sexual characteristics, are furnished with a hidden sting; and both males and females have wings, but the neuters have none. These insects meet together in companies, and maintain a sort of republic. They raise hillocks of earth, in which they live. In these there are paths, leading to the repositories of their provisions. The large black ants, in the warm climates of America, to avoid the effects of great rains, build large nests on trees, of light earth, roundish and plastered smooth.