chinch bug
Americannoun
noun
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a black-and-white tropical American heteropterous insect, Blissus leucopterus, that is very destructive to grasses and cereals in the US: family Lygaeidae
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a related and similar European insect, Ischnodemus sabuleti
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.
A glass of water or a chinch bug or a copper coin is composed of molecules.
From Time Magazine Archive
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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
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“They don’t know what a chinch bug or a Hessian fly is up there.”
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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I do not remember having seen a rat or a weasel on the frontier at that time, and many of the natives had never seen a potato bug or chinch bug or cockroach.
From Land of the Burnt Thigh by Voorhies, Stephen J.
The grain growers are losing over one hundred million dollars a year on account of the work of the chinch bug.
From News Writing The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories by Spencer, M. Lyle (Matthew Lyle)
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.