TENT CATERPILLAR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Tent caterpillar

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/tɛnt kˈætəpˌɪlər/ Listen

noun

Tent n.

A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of skins, canvas, or some strong cloth, stretched and sustained by poles, used for sheltering persons from the weather, especially soldiers in camp. "Within his tent, large as is a barn."

(Her.) The representation of a tent used as a bearing.

Tent bed, a high-post bedstead curtained with a tentlike canopy.

Tent caterpillar (Zool.), any one of several species of gregarious caterpillars which construct on trees large silken webs into which they retreat when at rest. Some of the species are very destructive to fruit trees. The most common American species is the larva of a bombycid moth (Clisiocampa Americana). Called also lackery caterpillar, and webworm.

See images of 'Tent caterpillar'

Etymology of 'Tent caterpillar'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Tent caterpillar" Quotes from Famous Books

... two complete generations. When the larvae have exhausted their food supply, they extend their nest by taking in fresh leaves, but always feed inside the nest, differing in this respect from the tent caterpillar which makes its nests here in May. When fully grown the caterpillars are about one and one-fourth inches long, with brown bodies covered with light brown hairs, and may be seen crawling about seeking a place to pupate. They soon go into the ground where they transform, ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various