wax insect

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noun

any of several scale insects that secrete a commercially valuable waxy substance, especially a Chinese scale insect, Ericerus pe-la.

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Origin of wax insect

First recorded in 1805–15

Words nearby wax insect

waxeye, wax flower, wax gourd, waxing, waxing moon, wax insect, wax jack, waxleaf privet, wax light, wax moth, wax museum

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use wax insect in a sentence

Place the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt on parchment or wax paper.
Make ‘The Chew’s’ Carla Hall’s Sticky Toffee Pudding|Carla Hall|December 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Alastair Sim had jowls like melting candle wax, a snarl like a cornered cat and eyes cold with contempt.
How Dickens and Scrooge Saved Christmas|Clive Irving|December 22, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Inside the wax floored examining room, I sat up on the powder blue table with my shirt off.
I Shot Bin Laden|Elliot Ackerman|November 16, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Bats are crucial to the ecosystem, performing extremely valuable jobs like pollination and insect control.
Bats’ Link to Ebola Finally Solved|Carrie Arnold|November 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Their nightly flights bring with them the powers to pollinate plants and control insect populations.
Bats’ Link to Ebola Finally Solved|Carrie Arnold|November 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Her eldest daughter married in America, and was well known as a modeller in wax in New York.
Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.|Clara Erskine Clement
At length only four or five flames remained, feebly wavering in their pools of melted wax.
The Boarded-Up House|Augusta Huiell Seaman
Two many-branched candelabra, holding wax lights, brilliantly illuminate the game.
The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills
Tories will wax eloquent on "the pink miasma of revolutionary Radicalism."
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 107, November 3, 1894|Various
To the animal whose special finger enables him to catch the insect?
God and my Neighbour|Robert Blatchford

British Dictionary definitions for wax insect

wax insect

noun

any of various scale insects that secrete wax or a waxy substance, esp the oriental species Ceroplastes ceriferus, which produces Chinese wax

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