chinch bug

noun

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

chinch bug

noun

1. a black-and-white tropical American heteropterous insect, Blissus leucopterus, that is very destructive to grasses and cereals in the US: family Lygaeidae

2. a related and similar European insect, Ischnodemus sabuleti

Word History and Origins

Origin of chinch bug¹

An Americanism dating back to 1775–85

Example Sentences

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.

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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.

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It takes over twenty-four thousand chinch bugs to weigh one ounce.

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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.”

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I fought squash bugs, cut worms, Hessian flies, chinch bugs, curculio, mange, pip, drought, dropsy, caterpillars and contumely till the latter part of August, when a friend from India came to visit me.

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