| 释义 |
▪ I. insect, n.|ˈɪnsɛkt|
[ad. L. insectum, ellipt. for animal insectum animal notched or cut into (Pliny), from insect-us, pa. pple. of insecāre to cut into; a rendering of Gr. ἔντοµον insect (Aristotle): cf. entomo-. Cf. F. insecte (Du Pinet, 16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. A small invertebrate animal, usually having a body divided into segments, and several pairs of legs, and often winged; in popular use comprising, besides the animals scientifically so called (see 2), many other arthropods, as spiders, mites, centipedes, wood-lice, etc., and other invertebrates, as the ‘coral-insect’; formerly (and still by the uneducated) applied still more widely, e.g. to earthworms, snails, and even some small vertebrates, as frogs and tortoises.
1601Holland Pliny Explan. Words Art, Insects, little vermine or smal creatures, which haue (as it were) a cut or diuision betweene their heads and bodies, as Pismires, Flies, Grashoppers, vnder which are comprehended Earth-wormes, Caterpillers [etc.]. 1611Cotgr., Insecte, an Insect; a small fleshlesse, and bloudlesse vermine, diuided (in some sort) betweene the head, bodie, and bellie, as an Ant, Fly, Bee, etc.; vnder which, the Earthworme, Caterpiller, etc. be also comprehended. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. xv. 142 The Scolopendra or hundred footed insect. 1658tr. Bergerac's Satyr. Char. xxvi. 95 Me-thinks I hear an angry frog croak..I use this Author something ill to reduce him to the Insects. 1661Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Introd., Of Insects, few are used as meat, except snailes, which some count most dainty sweet and nourishing meat. 1667Milton P.L. vii. 476 At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or Worme. 1732Arbuthnot Rules of Diet 252 All Birds which feed upon Worms and Insects. 1754Dict. Arts & Sc. III. 2032 Medusa, in zoology, a genus of naked insects. 1806P. Wakefield Dom. Recreat. vii. 97 Desire John to bring in the pan with the sea-insects..What strange creatures! they are far more like flowers than insects. Therefore they are called sea-anemonies. 1863Bates Nat. Amazon iv. (1864) 96 A large hairy spider of the genus Mygale..The Mygales are quite common insects.
2. Zool. An animal belonging to the class Insecta of Arthropoda: see insecta 2.
Only gradually restricted from the wider popular use. The earlier quots. here refer to true insects, but their authors would undoubtedly have included other animals under the name.
1601Holland Pliny xi. i. 310 Many and sundrie sorts there be of Insects..and well may they all be called Insecta: by reason of those cuts and divisions, which some have about the necke, others in the breast and belly; the which doe goe round and part the members of the bodie, hanging togither only by a little pipe and fistulous conveiance. 1658Phillips, An Insect, the smallest sort of Animal, as a Fly, Bee, or Ant, some think them to be so called, because they have a kind of division, or section, between the head and the belly. a1704Locke Elem. Nat. Philos. x. (1754) 38 They are called insects, from a separation in the middle of their bodies, whereby they are, as it were, cut into two parts, which are joined together by a small ligature: as we see in wasps, common flies, and the like. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp., Insects make one of the classes of animals, the characters of which are, that their body is covered with a sort of bony substance instead of skin, and their heads are furnished with antennae, called horns. Linnæi Syst. Nat. p. 83. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. IV. 137 We may define insects to be little animals without red blood, bones or cartilages, furnished with a trunk or else a mouth, opening lengthwise, with eyes which they are incapable of covering, and with lungs which have their openings in the sides. 1828Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. II. 217 Latreille divides the class of Insects, as now restricted, into eleven orders..The Parasita and Thysanoura, which Latreille previously arranged with the Arachnides, Dr. Leach first added to the class of Insects. 1862Darwin On Fertil. Orchids i. 38 Certain orchids require special insects for their fertilization. 1891L. C. Miall in Nature 10 Sept. 457/1 We understand insects to be animals of small size, furnished with a hard skin and six legs, breathing by branched air-tubes, and commonly provided in the adult condition with wings.
3. fig. Applied contemptuously to a person, as insignificant or despicable (sometimes also as annoying, like an insect persistently buzzing around or settling upon one).
1684Otway Atheist i. i, We are over-run with a Race of Vermin they call Wits, a Generation of Insects that are always making a Noise. 1707Hearne Collect. 24 Jan. (O.H.S.) I. 322 He, the little Insect, was recommended to King William. 1798Chalmers Posth. Wks. (1849) VI. 7 It is not for us, the frail insects of a day..to oppose the feeble powers of our reason to the wonders of Omnipotence. 1813Scott Trierm. ii. Interl. ii, Insects that skim in Fashion's sky, Wasp, blue-bottle, or butterfly.
4. attrib. and Comb.
a. attrib. That is an insect, as insect breeze, insect-drone, insect lamp, insect locust, insect pest, insect vermin; consisting of insects, as insect kind, insect myriads, insect quire, insect race, insect society, insect tribe, insect youth; resembling or likened to an insect, as insect follower, insect understanding, insect vexation; of or belonging to insects, as insect egg, insect fungus, insect head, insect larva, insect life, insect maggot, insect origin, insect parasite, insect queen, insect wax, insect wing; for insects, as insect-box, insect-cabinet, insect-repellent, insect-trap.
b. objective, instrumental, etc., as insect-collector, insect control, insect-destroyer, insect-eater, insect-eating adj., insect-hunter; insect-borne adj., insect-feeding adj., insect-fertilizable adj., insect-fertilization, insect-fertilized adj., insect-haunted adj., insect-pollinated adj., insect-proof adj.; insect-like adj. or adv.c. Special Combs.: insect-bed (see quot.); insect-feeder, a creature that feeds on insects; † insect-flower (poet.), applied to a sea-anemone; insect-gun, a small bellows for blowing insect-powder into crevices or sprinkling it upon plants; insect-net, a light head-net for catching insects; a butterfly-net; insect-powder, a powder (usually prepared from the dried flowers of species of Pyrethrum) used to kill or drive away insects.
1893Geikie Geol. (ed. 3) 899 These relics of insect life, are so abundant in the calcareous bands [of the British Lias] that the latter are known as *insect-beds.
1909R. W. Boyce Mosquito or Man? iv. 23 It is Dr. Beauperthuy whom we must regard as the father of the doctrine of *insect-borne disease. 1946Nature 21 Dec. 913/1 Analogy with filariasis elsewhere would suggest that the infection is insect-borne. 1972Ibid. 21 Jan. 135/2 To prevent the spread of insect-borne diseases.
1837Lett. fr. Madras (1843) 140 Many thanks for the *insect⁓box and pins.
1678Butler Hud. iii. ii. 1 The learned write, an *insect breeze Is but a mongrel prince of bees, That falls before a storm on cows, And stings the founders of his house.
1843Zoologist I. 342 An *insect-cabinet containing twelve drawers.
1878Smiles R. Dick v. 45 He was an *insect-collector.
1936Discovery Feb. 44/1 The legal insistence on *insect control is lax or non-existent until there is an actual outbreak of some pest causing serious financial loss. 1951A. W. A. Brown (title) Insect control by chemicals.
1875Knight Dict. Mech., *Insect-destroyer, a device for killing noxious insects.
1902W. de la Mare Songs of Childhood 30 Is it for fear the birds are flown, And shrills the *insect-drone? 1939‘N. Blake’ Smiler with Knife xi. 168 The insect-drone of a lawnmower.
1773White in Phil. Trans. LXIV. 201 These birds..*insect-eaters themselves. 1908Westm. Gaz. 22 Feb. 16/1 There is a class of small mammals, mostly of nocturnal habits, that come under the order of Insectivora, or insect-eaters. 1936Discovery July 212/2 Bee-eaters, swallows, swifts, and other insect-eaters.
1872Carpenter Anim. Phys. iv. 163 *Insect-eating animals obtain their food by means of a long extensible tongue. 1879Lubbock Sci. Lect. i. 4 The first observation on insect-eating flowers was made about the year 1768 by our countryman Ellis.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 264 The atmosphere is freighted with myriads of *insect-eggs that elude our senses.
1891Daily News 15 Dec. 5/4 It has been reserved for..Mr. Francis Darwin, to prove conclusively that *insect-fed plants bear heavier and more numerous seeds than unfed ones.
1835–6Todd Cycl. Anat. I. 599/2 The many pointed tuberculous teeth of the *insect-feeders.
1909Westm. Gaz. 23 Apr. 4/2 The migratory, *insect-feeding birds from the South..begin their nesting work.
1880A. R. Wallace Isl. Life 473 Many of them require *insect-fertilisation.
1791E. Darwin Bot. Gard. i. 121 You guard the Mermaid in her briny vale; Feed the live petals of her *insect-flowers.
1751Smollett Per. Pic. (1779) IV. xcv. 159 All those *insect-followers shrink away in the winter of distress.
1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 572, I write by the light of an *insect-haunted lantern.
1857E. Newman (title) The *Insect-hunters or Entomology in Verse. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 169, I had to jump at a rock wall, and hang on to it in a manner more befitting an insect than an insect-hunter.
1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) II. 94 Be they of the poorest *insect-kind, such as bees or wasps; 'tis natural to 'em to be rouz'd with fury.
1727–46Thomson Summer 828 From Menam's orient stream, that nightly shines With *insect-lamps.
1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) III. 156 The contemplation of the *insect-life.
1772G. White Let. 9 Mar. in Selborne (1789) ii. xii. 147, I..believe that many of the swallow kind..do, *insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times. 1929D. H. Lawrence Pansies 118 Working men Pale and mean and insect-like, scuttling along And living like lice. 1930R. Campbell Adamastor 55 Faint, insect⁓like and thin it came, The wistful sound those heroes made.
1658J. Rowland tr. Moufet's Theat. Ins. 1125 The *Insect-Locust is like the Lobster, for that cannot be called either flesh or fish.
1747Gould Eng. Ants 39 Most *Insect Maggots are furnished with a Set of Legs.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 452 Linnæus, who..endeavoured to resolve almost all diseases..into an animalcular or *insect origin.
1853Zoologist XI. 4045 These exceedingly rare *insect-parasites.
1854Ibid. XII. 4179 The galleries or perforations of these *insect-pests.
1911F. O. Bower Plant-Life 96 In a family (Ranunculaceae) as a rule *insect-pollinated. 1953J. S. Huxley Evolution in Action i. 34 Insect-pollinated flowers.
1893Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. Dec. 823 Ordinary *insect-powders..were quite ineffectual.
1908Japan Chron. 1 July 4/6 It [sc. a kind of paper] is said to be capable of being worked into all sorts of patterns, to be *insect-proof and damp-proof. 1946Nature 21 Sept. 417/2 Two insect-proof cubicles in the glasshouse were filled with healthy young turnip and Chinese cabbage plants.
1813Byron Giaour 388 Rising on its purple wing The *insect-queen of eastern spring [note, The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species].
1818Shelley Rev. Islam x. xv, The fish were poisoned in the streams..the *insect race Was withered up.
1953Scott & Fisher Thousand Geese v. 50 We had brought effective *insect-repellents, so we were not much troubled by the biting elements of the insect population. 1971L. Payne Even my Foot's Asleep xvi. 214 A musky, incense-type perfume..probably an insect repellent.
1887Amer. Naturalist XXI. 501 The plant which I have to notice because of its peculiarity as an *insect-trap.
1728–46Thomson Spring 60 And some, with whom compared your *insect tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day.
1816J. Gilchrist Philos. Etym. 105 These cobwebs entangle *insect understandings like their own.
1808Helen St. Victor Ruins Rigonda II. 109 *Insect vermin which swarmed on the walls.
1750Johnson Rambler No. 68 ⁋3 *Insect vexations which sting us and fly away.
1853Zoologist XI. 3820 Specimens of the white *insect-wax of China.
1712–14Pope Rape Lock ii. 59 Some to the sun their *insect-wings unfold.
1742Gray Ode on Spring iii, The *insect youth are on the wing, Eager to..float amid the liquid noon.
▪ II. † insect, a. Obs.
[ad. L. insect-us, pa. pple. of insecāre to cut into: see prec.]
Having the body divided into segments; chiefly in insect animals = L. animālia insecta: see insecta.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. v. (Arb.) 162 So also is the Ante or pismire, and they be but little creeping things, not perfect beasts, but insect, or wormes. a1658Cleveland Gen. Poems, etc. (1677) 136 Meeting with the putrid Matter of your Invention, as the Sun produceth Insect Animals. a1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. iv. ii. 306 Some insect Animals.
▪ III. † insect, v.1 Obs. rare.|ɪnˈsɛkt|
[f. L. insect-, ppl. stem of insecāre to cut into: cf. dissect, intersect.]
trans. To cut into.
a1652Brome Queen & Conc. iii. vii, Down with their weapons, up with their heels, till we insect and rip up the intrails of the cause.
▪ IV. insect, v.2 nonce-wd.|ˈɪnsɛkt|
[f. insect n.]
intr. To hunt or catch insects.
1879J. Burroughs Locusts & W. Honey 203 We discovered the bird..insecting in the top of a newly-fallen hemlock. |