worms and insects; creeping things
A somewhat old-fashioned or literary collective term for small crawling creatures, including worms and insects. In modern everyday speech, 虫 (むし) is more common.
People in the past called worms and insects collectively 'mushi'.
roundworms; nematodes
cestodes; tapeworms
nematodes; roundworms
rotifers; rotatoria
amoeba (as a taxonomic group); Amoebozoa
Compound of 虫 (chū, 'insect, worm') and 類 (rui, 'kind, class'). The reading ちゅう is the on'yomi of 虫.