meal moth

British

noun

a small pyralid moth, Pyralis farinalis, whose larvae are an important pest of stored cereals. The Indian meal moth ( Plodia interpunctella ) and the Mediterranean flour moth ( Ephestia kuehniella ) are other pyralids with similar habits

"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

Example Sentences

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Indian meal moth caterpillars often crawl to ceilings or walls before forming a cocoon, and it can take several weeks for the last of these cocoons to release the moths that formed within them.

From Washington Post • Oct. 7, 2022

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