I think I might have missed this when it came around last year, but there are a couple things I want to add. First, @a-book-of-creatures is entirely correct.
Second, there's another reason why "Wormtongue" doesn't mean what you think -- that's not a Tolkien original. He borrowed the name from somewhere else, where it's... let's go with ambiguously complimentary. Specifically:
As you can see, the more common translation is "serpent-tongue", but it's the same word. Worm, serpent, snake, dragon... they can all be orm. Not to be confused with this thing, which is an olm:
(I can't find any etymological link there, but it's tempting to imagine one, isn't it?)
Anyway, in the saga, Ormstungu isn't really an insult. It's kind of a compliment but it includes an implied criticism. See, Gunnlaug is a poet... you know what, here's the text.
... he was very well set up, thoroughly obstreperous in disposition, ambitious already at an early age, unyielding in everything, ruthless and an able poet, but rather a scurrilous one; he was called Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue.
Another translation puts it like this:
... he was a great skald, but somewhat bitter in his rhyming, and therefore was he called Gunnlaug Worm-tongue.
(Translation W. Morris and E. Magnusson)
The term being translated as "scurrilous" or "bitter" is níðskár, which has cultural implications in saga-age Iceland that are hard to sum up in a single word. (The Cleasby-Vigfusson dictionary suggests "libellous", which I think is closer than either of the two above). What you need to know is that níða kind of means "to insult or shame" but... more so. Like "grounds for a blood feud" more so.
So the point is, he is called Ormstungu because (a) he's quite good with his words but (b) said words tend to be rather vicious. Maybe the closest English equivalent would be "sharp-tongued".
Now, you might say, "but Maniculum! just because it means such-and-such in this random 13th-century text doesn't prove it means the same thing in Tolkien! he could have come up with it independently and had a completely different implication in mind!"
Which, sure, good point, it's not like Tolkien was in the habit of borrowing names from Old Norse literature -- hold on, my copy of Ynglingasaga just fell off the shelf, let me check on that...
Of course that's just a coincidence, he didn't really get the name from Ynglingasaga. He got it from the Poetic Edda:
So yeah. Point is, this is a tradition Tolkien drew on heavily. So we can assume the epithet "Worm-tongue" has the same meaning for Grima as it did for Gunnlaug: someone who is clever with their words, but in a dangerous way. And it probably has nothing to do with earthworms.
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