Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

(Zoology) the larva of several species of moths and butterflies, which attacks cabbages. The most common is the toxic green larva of a white butterfly, the cabbage butterfly, (Pieris rapa). The cabbage cutworms, which eat off the stalks of young plants during the night, are the larva of several species of moths, of the genus Agrotis. See Cutworm. larva of a cabbage butterfly.