INSECT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Insect

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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

... in expounding the political history of the intervening two centuries, drew an apt image from a seed eaten by insect parasites. First there is the original seed, ripening vigorously enough. And then comes some insect and lays an egg under the skin, and behold! in a little while the seed is a hollow shape with an active grub inside that has eaten out its substance. And then comes some secondary ...

— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... which, hanging at the end of a long thread of its own spinning, was endeavoring, as is the fashion of that creature, to swing itself from one beam in the roof to another, for the purpose of fixing the line on which it meant to stretch its web. The insect made the attempt again and again without success; at length Bruce counted that it had tried to carry its point six times, and been as often unable to do so. It came into his-head that he had himself fought just ...

— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... Mrs. Marston did it. No one ever saw her hurried or busy, yet the proofs of her industry were here. She worked like the coral insect, in the dark, as it were, of instinct unlit by intellect, and, like the coral insect, she raised a monumental structure ...

— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... agricultural operations and could not be placated until a shrine was built in its honour; that in the time of the Emperor Kogyoku, the people of the eastern provinces devoted themselves to the worship of an insect resembling a silkworm, which they regarded as a manifestation of the Kami of the Moon; that the Emperor Keiko (A.D. 71-130) declared a huge tree to be sacred; that in the days of the Empress Suiko (A.D. 593-628), ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... He appeared on a stretched cable, far away above the sea of tossing hats and handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the hundreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he looked like a wee insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length of his rope—two or three hundred feet; he came back and got a man and carried him across; he returned to the center and danced a jig; next he performed some gymnastic and balancing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle; ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

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