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/ˈɪnsˌɛkt/ Listen

noun

Insect n.

(Zool.) One of the Insecta; esp., one of the Hexapoda. See Insecta. Note: The hexapod insects pass through three stages during their growth, viz., the larva, pupa, and imago or adult, but in some of the orders the larva differs little from the imago, except in lacking wings, and the active pupa is very much like the larva, except in having rudiments of wings. In the higher orders, the larva is usually a grub, maggot, or caterpillar, totally unlike the adult, while the pupa is very different from both larva and imago and is inactive, taking no food.

(Zool.) Any air-breathing arthropod, as a spider or scorpion.

(Zool.) Any small crustacean. In a wider sense, the word is often loosely applied to various small invertebrates.

Fig.: Any small, trivial, or contemptible person or thing.

Insect powder,a powder used for the extermination of insects; esp., the powdered flowers of certain species of Pyrethrum, a genus now merged in Chrysanthemum. Called also Persian powder.

adjective

Insect adj.

Of or pertaining to an insect or insects.

Like an insect; small; mean; ephemeral.

See images of 'Insect'

Etymology of 'Insect'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Insect" Quotes from Famous Books

... up through the clear blue air, infinitely diminished and attenuated, like some insect cry. The tall man seemed to guess just what the interruption would be. He turned with a ...

— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... his mind in the dying bird detached itself and entered the brain of the Queen Bee. There were long, disheartening moments of twisting and struggling to fit into that strange, vicious insect brain. He finally managed to take control, yet was not fully en rapport. Sight through her multi-faceted eyes was very nearly impossible with the little time he could give ...

— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... similar way Madagascar is divided between the Malayan Hovas, who occupy the eastern and central part of the island, and the African Sakalavas who border the western coast. [See map page 105.] This distribution of the ethnic elements corresponds to that of the insect life, which is more African on the western side and more Indo-Malayan on the eastern.[856] Though the population shows every physical type between Negro and Malayan, and ethnic diversity still ...

— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... he walked on in confidence, also in a great seriousness, going his way melancholy as a camel, his head turned from the many temptations that the way offered to him—the flower in the cactus hedge was one. He passed it without picking it, and further on he allowed a strange crawling insect to go by without molestation, and feeling his mood to be exceptional he fell to thinking that his granny would laugh, were she ...

— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... objection to them is that they are rather too short to bear repetition for half an hour as is the custom, there is another music going on—a music that cannot be written and will be difficult to describe—I mean the song of the "Cicada Stridulantia" in walnut trees above me. This insect—the balm cricket—is in appearance a burlesque, just such a house fly as you might imagine would be introduced in a pantomime; and its cry is as loud and incessant as it is peculiar. To describe it, fancy to begin with a number of strange chirps, ...

— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster

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