chinch

American  

[chinch] / tʃɪntʃ /

noun

• chinches
  plural

1. chinch bug.

2. (loosely) a bedbug.

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chinch British  

/ tʃɪntʃ /

noun

1. another name for a bedbug

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• chinches
  plural

Etymology

Origin of chinch

1615–25; < Spanish chinche < Latin cīmic- (stem of cīmex ) bug

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

chinch chinches

He likened AAA's crop reduction to chinch bugs, boll weevils and locusts which make scarce "the things for which millions are nightly praying."

From Time Magazine Archive

Relatively impervious to either drought, damp or chinch bug, amenable to almost any type of soil, the bean's chief enemies are rabbits, grasshoppers, blister beetles.

From Time Magazine Archive

The chinch bugs assaulted the scraggly grain stalks, and the grasshoppers swarmed.

From Time Magazine Archive

If the newspapers succeed in selling Landon to this country, thus proving to the world that anything can be sold by proper advertising, then Kansas will advertise her chinch bugs and grasshoppers.

From Time Magazine Archive

He don’t go to chinch or nothing, but he not so quick to judge.

From "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

Immediately the chinches disappeared and not one could be found, although one could gather than by handfuls before, as they say.”

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 1624 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. by James Alexander Robertson

You can't never git de chinches out of dese cotton matt'esses us has to sleep on now days.

From Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 4 by Work Projects Administration

Lady, dar's one of dem chinches from my bed a-crawlin' over your pretty white dress.

From Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 2 by Work Projects Administration

All the houses was made of logs and we slept on shuck and grass mattresses what was allus full of chinches.

From Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 4 by United States. Work Projects Administration

All the troublesome vermin that ever I heard anybody complain of, are either frogs, snakes, musquitoes, chinches, seed ticks, or red worms, by some called potato lice.

From The History of Virginia, in Four Parts by Robert Beverley