noun
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A pesticide used to kill insects. Chlordane and DDT are insecticides.
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Compare fungicide herbicide rodenticide
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of insecticide
Explanation
Insecticide is a type of chemical used to kill insects, like those that have infested a house or a farmer's crops. Words that end in -cide usually have to do with killing, such as genocide, suicide, and patricide. Another is insecticide, which is a word for a substance that kills insects and bugs. Insecticide is a type of chemical, and it often consists of a powder or gas. If your house is full of bedbugs or cockroaches, you need insecticide. Farmers sometimes use insecticides to keep insects from destroying crops. If you're a bug, insecticide is bad news.
Vocabulary lists containing insecticide
"Dr. Seuss" by Jill Foran
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Speeches by César Chávez
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"The Exterminator" by Kirsten Weir
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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 application proposes that attracting termites toward treated areas could potentially allow technicians to space treatment holes farther apart while reducing labor and possibly the amount of insecticide needed.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
They then treated the property with a high-potency insecticide.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
A 2024 report by Kenyan food safety initiative Route to Food found a farmer in Kimana area using an insecticide that had an "active ingredient" that was "a chemical compound of cyanide".
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
Infected wounds are cleaned and debrided to remove any screwworm larvae, after which the animal is treated with an approved insecticide, DeNotta said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
The insecticide tolerance of young commercial shrimp just past larval life was found to be exceedingly low — measured in parts per billion instead of the more commonly used standard of parts per million.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
"By applying the insecticides, that's when they started falling out of conduit pipes, literally coming out of plug sockets, out of the toasters, out of the back of microwave ovens," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Proponents say French sugar beet, apple and hazelnut farmers need the insecticides -- forbidden in France since 2018 and 2019, respectively -- to help them compete with their European counterparts.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
If trees are lightly or not-yet infested, they can be sprayed or injected with insecticides.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2026
But syrup producers do not plant, irrigate, fertilize or use insecticides on their self-sufficient forests.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025
One of the most important things to remember about insecticides in soil is their long persistence, measured not in months but in years.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
