to be food for worms
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
To be dead. Your worm is your only emperor for diet; we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. — Hamlet, iv, 3.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “to be food for worms” mean?
To be dead. Your worm is your only emperor for diet; we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots. — Hamlet, iv, 3.
Is “to be food for worms” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.