rhinoceros beetle

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noun

any of several scarabaeid beetles, especially of the genus Dynastes, which comprises the largest beetles, characterized by one or more horns on the head and prothorax.

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Also called dynastid.

Origin of rhinoceros beetle

First recorded in 1675–85

Words nearby rhinoceros beetle

rhinoantritis, rhinocanthectomy, rhinocele, rhinocephaly, rhinoceros, rhinoceros beetle, rhinoceros bird, rhinocheiloplasty, Rhinocladiella, rhinocleisis, Rhinocort

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use rhinoceros beetle in a sentence

Blister rust is like having the flu; the pine beetle is like fast acting leukemia.
What It Takes to Kill a Grizzly Bear|Doug Peacock|November 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In 2007, FWS reported that the beetle outbreak had affected only 16 percent of the whitebark pines.
What It Takes to Kill a Grizzly Bear|Doug Peacock|November 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The Beetle was launched with a series of television commercials unlike any before them.
Nationalism on Four Wheels|Clive Irving|October 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It surpasses the paintings of horses and rhinoceros from the Chauvet Cave in France by 400 years.
The Oldest Cave Art May Not Be in Europe|Justin Jones|October 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST

South Africa is the most dangerous place in the world to be a rhinoceros.
South Africa’s Great Rhino Airlift|Nina Strochlic|August 17, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Her feet crush creeping things: there is a busy ant or blazoned beetle, with its back broken, writhing in the dust, unseen.
God and my Neighbour|Robert Blatchford
But strangest of all the dishes at the Tagal's feast was one prepared from a kind of beetle.
Alila, Our Little Philippine Cousin|Mary Hazelton Wade
Even the gruff, grumpy, unsociable rhinoceros amiably allowed him to stroke its head with his trunk.
The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands|R.M. Ballantyne
Among other things, the rhinoceros was knocked so heavily against the bars of his crib that they began to give way.
The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands|R.M. Ballantyne
If this passenger was easy-going and polite, the rhinoceros, which came next, was very much the reverse.
The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands|R.M. Ballantyne

British Dictionary definitions for rhinoceros beetle

rhinoceros beetle

noun

any of various scarabaeid beetles having one or more horns on the head, esp Oryctes rhinoceros, a serious pest on coconut plantations

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