Old English 'wyrm' from PIE *wrmis (the turning thing) — once meant serpent and dragon; Beowulf's dragon was a 'wyrm.'
A soft-bodied, legless invertebrate animal, typically living in soil or as a parasite; historically also applied to serpents and dragons.
From Old English 'wyrm' (serpent, snake, dragon, worm, insect larva), from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (serpent, worm), from PIE *wr̥mis (worm, serpent), from the root *wer- (to turn, to twist, to wind). The word originally meant any large serpentine creature, including what we now call snakes and dragons. In Beowulf, the dragon is a 'wyrm.' The restriction to small invertebrates is a modern narrowing — the word has undergone a dramatic demotion in size and status. Key
In Beowulf, the dragon that kills the hero is called a 'wyrm' — the same word that now means earthworm. The word has undergone one of the most dramatic demotions in English: from fire-breathing dragon to garden invertebrate. In Scandinavian languages, the cognate 'orm' still means snake. English 'vermicelli' (thin pasta) comes from the Latin