chinch bug

American

noun

a small lygaeid bug, Blissus leucopterus, that feeds on corn, wheat, and other grains.

chinch bug British

noun

a black-and-white tropical American heteropterous insect, Blissus leucopterus, that is very destructive to grasses and cereals in the US: family Lygaeidae
a related and similar European insect, Ischnodemus sabuleti

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of chinch bug

An Americanism dating back to 1775–85

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.

“They don’t know what a chinch bug or a Hessian fly is up there.”

From Literature

There were chinch bugs and grasshoppers, months of drought, elections, slavery, secession, talk of war—the adult world of trouble, though, was not real enough to dim the goodness of an April morning.

From Literature

I had felt faint in the hot sun many times myself and had seen chinch bugs eat up whole fields of wheat, and yet I did not want to die.

From Project Gutenberg

The grain growers are losing over one hundred million dollars a year on account of the work of the chinch bug.

From Project Gutenberg

A man can work like a dog, and along comes a drouth or chinch bugs or too much rain during the haying season and, presto, all his fond hopes are knocked sky high.”

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023