wax insect

American  

noun

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

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wax insect British  

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of wax insect

First recorded in 1805–15

Example Sentences

See Bo-tree.Fish, species of, at St. Paul Island, i. 316Fitzroy Dry Dock, Cockatoo Island, Sydney, iii. 49Flata limbata, or wax insect of China.

From Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume III (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the Austrian Navy. by Scherzer, Karl Ritter von