noun
children's medicine for nervousness
Traditional term for a mild medicine given to children to calm irritability or nervousness, often associated with the idea of 'quieting the worms' believed to cause fussiness.
昔は、夜泣きする子に虫押さえを飲ませたそうだ。
I hear that in the old days, they used to give children's calming medicine to babies who cried at night.
noun
snack for an empty stomach
A light snack taken to stave off hunger pangs, similar to 虫養い. The term is old-fashioned and rarely used in modern conversation.
See also: 虫養い
小腹が空いたので、虫押さえに煎餅を食べた。
I was a bit hungry, so I ate some rice crackers as a snack to tide me over.
虫養い also means a light snack to quiet hunger, but is more common and less specifically associated with children's medicine.
Compound of 虫 (mushi, 'worm; temper') and 押さえ (osae, 'suppression'). The term reflects the traditional belief that irritability or hunger pangs were caused by 'worms' in the body that needed to be calmed or fed.