insect
Americannoun
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any animal of the class Insecta, comprising small, air-breathing arthropods having the body divided into three parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), and having three pairs of legs and usually two pairs of wings.
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any small arthropod, such as a spider, tick, or centipede, having a superficial, general similarity to the insects.
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a contemptible or unimportant person.
adjective
noun
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any small air-breathing arthropod of the class Insecta, having a body divided into head, thorax, and abdomen, three pairs of legs, and (in most species) two pairs of wings. Insects comprise about five sixths of all known animal species, with a total of over one million named species
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(loosely) any similar invertebrate, such as a spider, tick, or centipede
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a contemptible, loathsome, or insignificant person
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Any of very numerous, mostly small arthropods of the class Insecta, having six segmented legs in the adult stage and a body divided into three parts (the head, thorax, and abdomen). The head has a pair of antennae and the thorax usually has one or two pairs of wings. Most insects undergo substantial change in form during development from the young to the adult stage. More than 800,000 species are known, most of them beetles. Other insects include flies, bees, ants, grasshoppers, butterflies, cockroaches, aphids, and silverfish.
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See Notes at biomass bug entomology
Other Word Forms
- insect-like adjective
- insectean adjective
- insectival adjective
- noninsect noun
Etymology
Origin of insect
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin insectum, noun use of neuter of insectus, past participle of insecāre “to incise, cut”; translation of Greek éntomon “insect,” literally, “notched or incised one”; entomo-; segment
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"These thousands of newly found species each year are not just microscopic organisms, but include insects, plants, fungi and even hundreds of new vertebrates."
From Science Daily
These discoveries cover an astonishing sweep of life on Earth, including dinosaurs, mammals, fishes, reptiles, insects, arachnids, marine invertebrates, and even a mineral never documented before.
From Science Daily
Once the eggs hatch, the maggots burrow into flesh in a corkscrew motion, which is how the insect got its name.
From Science Daily
A frog with an unexpectedly strong resistance to venom has been identified, and it routinely eats hornets despite the insects' dangerous stingers.
From Science Daily
If it degrades rapidly, that means insects are attracted to the plentiful organic matter.
From Salon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
