noun
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A pesticide used to kill insects. Chlordane and DDT are insecticides.
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Compare fungicide herbicide rodenticide
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of insecticide
Explanation
Insecticide is a type of chemical used to kill insects, like those that have infested a house or a farmer's crops. Words that end in -cide usually have to do with killing, such as genocide, suicide, and patricide. Another is insecticide, which is a word for a substance that kills insects and bugs. Insecticide is a type of chemical, and it often consists of a powder or gas. If your house is full of bedbugs or cockroaches, you need insecticide. Farmers sometimes use insecticides to keep insects from destroying crops. If you're a bug, insecticide is bad news.
Vocabulary lists containing insecticide
"Dr. Seuss" by Jill Foran
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Speeches by César Chávez
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"The Exterminator" by Kirsten Weir
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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.
See Examples For:
Bedbugs have become resistant to modern insecticide sprays, which makes them very difficult to kill and having an infestation can have long-lasting effects, according to Naylor.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
When Roden-Reynolds conducts tick surveys, he wears clothing permeated with the tick-killing insecticide permethrin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
The application proposes that attracting termites toward treated areas could potentially allow technicians to space treatment holes farther apart while reducing labor and possibly the amount of insecticide needed.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
A 2024 report by Kenyan food safety initiative Route to Food found a farmer in Kimana area using an insecticide that had an "active ingredient" that was "a chemical compound of cyanide".
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
Requests for money for wildlife- insecticide research were included in annual budgets submitted to the Illinois legislature by the Natural History Survey, but were invariably among the first items to be eliminated.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Think of Bayer and Vylor, which sell novel crop seeds to farmers that can withstand various insecticides and herbicides.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
"By applying the insecticides, that's when they started falling out of conduit pipes, literally coming out of plug sockets, out of the toasters, out of the back of microwave ovens," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Proponents say French sugar beet, apple and hazelnut farmers need the insecticides -- forbidden in France since 2018 and 2019 respectively -- to help them compete with their European counterparts.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
To treat a screwworm infection, DeNotta said, people undergo the same combination of wound debridement and insecticides used in animals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
A substantial number of the remaining 98 per cent were engaged in research on chemical insecticides.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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