Word To Use Today: weevil.

 The real reason for featuring this word on The Word Den is that it is related to the Old High German word wibil.

Well, it makes me smile.

Anyway, weevils are beetles with long snouts. You can often tell what they feed on by their name. The rice weevil feeds on rice, the maize weevil feeds on maize, the wheat weevil...well, you get the idea.

There are, however, thankfully, exceptions to this useful trend. 

The giraffe weevil:

By Frank Vassen - Flickr: Giraffe Weevil, Andasibe, Madagascar, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14465464

feeds on the leaves of trees, but has a long neck (which, like a real giraffe, it uses for fighting); and the drugstore weevil, though it does feed on the kinds of dried herbs you can often find in a drugstore, isn't actually a weevil. It's just an ordinary beetle. It hasn't got the nose.

A weevil's schnozzle is actually more properly called a rostrum, and unlike most beetles, a weevil can use it to chew:

But I really don't want to think too much about that.

Word To Use Today: weevil. The Old English form of this word is wifel. The Old Norse word tordȳfill means dung beetle, and a weevil is basically a small beetle. Wee, meaning small, comes from the Old English wǣg, weight.