Cocoon

1. n. The egg cases of mucus, etc., made by leeches and other worms.
2. n. An oblong case in which the silkworm lies in its chrysalis state. It is formed of threads of silk spun by the worm just before leaving the larval state. From these the silk of commerce is prepared.
3. n. The case constructed by any insect to contain its larva or pupa.
4. n. The case of silk made by spiders to protect their eggs.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.