insect
Americannoun
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insects
plural
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any animal of the class Insecta, comprising small, air-breathing arthropods having the body divided into three parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), and having three pairs of legs and usually two pairs of wings.
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any small arthropod, such as a spider, tick, or centipede, having a superficial, general similarity to the insects.
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a contemptible or unimportant person.
adjective
noun
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any small air-breathing arthropod of the class Insecta, having a body divided into head, thorax, and abdomen, three pairs of legs, and (in most species) two pairs of wings. Insects comprise about five sixths of all known animal species, with a total of over one million named species
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(loosely) any similar invertebrate, such as a spider, tick, or centipede
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a contemptible, loathsome, or insignificant person
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Any of very numerous, mostly small arthropods of the class Insecta, having six segmented legs in the adult stage and a body divided into three parts (the head, thorax, and abdomen). The head has a pair of antennae and the thorax usually has one or two pairs of wings. Most insects undergo substantial change in form during development from the young to the adult stage. More than 800,000 species are known, most of them beetles. Other insects include flies, bees, ants, grasshoppers, butterflies, cockroaches, aphids, and silverfish.
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See Notes at biomass bug entomology
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of insect
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin insectum, noun use of neuter of insectus, past participle of insecāre “to incise, cut”; translation of Greek éntomon “insect,” literally, “notched or incised one”; see entomo-; cf. segment
Explanation
An insect is commonly called a bug. Flies, bees, and wasps are all insects. Insects are the tiny marvels of the natural world. From industrious ants to dazzling butterflies, these miniature critters come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, each with its own special role in ecosystems worldwide. With over a million species identified and countless more waiting to be discovered, insects continue to fascinate scientists and inspire curiosity in nature lovers everywhere. Insect comes from the Latin phrase animal insectum, which means "animal with a cut up (segmented) body."
Vocabulary lists containing insect
Buzzwords for National Honey Bee Day
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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A Cut Above: Sect, Sec
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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:
The newly recognized Late Mississippian fossil also provides a valuable snapshot of an intermediate stage in insect evolution.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
Clearly recognizable insect fossils do not become abundant until the Late Carboniferous.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
They also challenge previous ideas about changes in insect body size, ecological adaptation, and the way insects evolved alongside terrestrial ecosystems.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
Although they lived in many of the same environments as anatomically modern humans, their dental calculus contained considerably more insect DNA.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
“Ooo, Emma, this is like when you built that mechanical insect for me,” Finn squeal-whispered.
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Stressed trees become susceptible to insects and disease.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
It also had a segmented trunk and six walking legs, the basic body organization associated with insects.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
As insects evolved away from their crustacean ancestors, swimming appendages were progressively simplified and lost.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
Their findings suggest that insects did not become fully terrestrial immediately after beginning to colonize land.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026
Some rats ran off down the road, others hurled themselves into the ditch, pursued by the relentless, stinging insects.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
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.
