| 释义 |
▪ I. locust, n.|ˈləʊkəst|
Also (in sense 5) 7– locus.
[a. OF. locuste or L. locusta: see lobster1. The early ME. languste is a. OF. langouste (semi-popular ad. locusta, through logoste, longoste).]
1. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the family Acridiidæ (characterized by short horns), esp. Œdipoda migratoria (or Pachytylus migratorius), the Migratory Locust, well known for its ravages in Asia and Africa, where, migrating in countless numbers, it frequently eats up the vegetation of whole districts. Locusts are in many countries used for food.
In the Hebrew Bible there are nine different names for the insect or for particular species or varieties; in the Eng. Bible they are rendered sometimes ‘locust’, sometimes ‘beetle’, ‘grasshopper’, ‘caterpillar’, ‘palmerworm’, etc. The precise application of the several names is unknown. bald locust: in Lev. xi. 22 used to render the Heb. solﻋām, because the Talmud states that this word meant a locust with a smooth head.
[c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 127 Wilde hunie and languste his mete.] a1300Cursor M. 6041 Þan sent drightin a litel beist, O toth es noght vnfelunest, Locust it hatt. a1340Hampole Psalter lxxvii. 51 Locustis ere bestis þat fleghis & etis kornes. 1382Wyclif Ps. lxxvii[i]. 46 He ȝaf to rust the frutis of hem; and ther trauailis to a locust [Coverdale the greshopper, 1611 the locust]. 1526Tindale Matt. iii. 4 Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony. 1611Bible Lev. xi. 22 Euen these of them ye may eate: the Locust, after his kinde, and the Bald-locust after his kinde. 1638Wilkins New World i. (1684) 184 Those great Multitudes of Locusts wherewith divers Countries have bin Destroyed. 1667Milton P.L. xii. 185. 1742 Young Nt. Th. iii. 238 Thick as the locust on the land of Nile. 1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) III. 166 The migratory locust. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. xii. (1873) 327 Locusts are sometimes blown to great distances from the land. 1880Disraeli Endym. i. xxxi. 288 The white ant can destroy fleets and cities, and the locusts erase a province.
2. Applied to insects of other families.
a. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the genus Locusta (family Locustidæ).
b. A homopterous insect of the genus Cicada (family Cicadidæ); e.g. the seventeen-year locust, C. septendecim.
c. north. and midl. dial. The cockchafer, Melolontha vulgaris.
1623Cockeram, Locusts, grashoppers. 1710A. Philips Pastorals vi. 29 When Locusts in the Fearny Bushes cry. 1846J. L. Stokes Discov. Australia I. ix. 285 The trees swarmed with large locusts (the cicada), quite deafening us with their shrill buzzing noise. 1854Whittier Burns vii, I hear..The locust in the haying. 1860G. Bennett Gatherings of a Naturalist xii. 270 Those noisy insects, the Tettigoniæ or Treehoppers, the Locusts of the colonists, are very numerous in New South Wales. 1862Jobson Australia iv. 104 We heard everywhere on the gum-trees the cricket-like insects—usually called locusts by the colonists—hissing their reed-like monotonous noise. 1899Daily News 26 July 8/2 The Cicadas, of which the 17-year Locust is one, are among the noisiest of insects.
3. fig. (from 1). A person of devouring or destructive propensities.
1546Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1560) 5 b, Theyr Byshoppes, Priestes, and Monkes, with other disguised Locustes of the same generation. 1587Fleming Contn. Holinshed III. 1323/2 Certeine locusts of the popes seminaries..arriuing in England, and dispersing themselues into such places [etc.]. 1681Dryden Sp. Fryar iii. 33 You promis'd to..bring your Regiment of Red Locusts upon me for Free-quarter. 1785Burke Sp. Nabob Arcot Wks. IV. 285 All the territorial revenues have..been covered by those locusts, the English soucars. 1826Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) II. 258 Those locusts called middle-men..who live..out of the labour of the producer and the consumer. 1840Alison Europe (1849–50) VIII. l. §8. 127 An army of locusts in the form of..customhouse-officers..and other functionaries fell upon all the countries occupied by the French troops.
4. a. The fruit of the carob tree; a locust-bean. b. A cassia-pod, the fruit of Cassia fistula.[The Gr. name ἀκρίς, properly denoting the insect, is applied in the Levant to the carob-pod, from some resemblance in form; and from very early times it has been believed by many that the ‘locusts’ eaten by John the Baptist were these pods. The application to the cassia-pod is due to confusion with the carob-pod.] 1615G. Sandys Trav. ii. 121 Their fields, in which grow variety of excellent fruites; as..Dates, Almonds, Cassia fistula,..Locust, (flat, and of the forme of a cycle) [etc.]. 1718Quincy Compl. Disp. 181 Cassia, or Locust. This is a kind of Pod or Cane, which grows upon a large Tree in some parts of Brazil. 1775Ann. Reg. 92 Some have called the fruit [of the algarroba tree] locusts, and supposed it was the Baptist's food in the wilderness.
5. a. = locust-tree (in its various senses).
1640Parkinson Theat. Bot. 1552 The second is called Locus by our Nation resident in Virginia. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes 74 The Locust is a tree, not unfitly to be resembled to a Tuscan Pillar. Ibid., Another Locust there is, which they call the bastard Locust. 1676T. Glover Acc. Virginia in Phil. Trans. XI. 628 There is likewise black Walnut,..Gum-tree, Locust. 1764Grainger Sugar Cane i. 34 Let thy biting ax..the tough locust fell. 1775W. Emerson in Harper's Mag. (1883) Oct. 740/1 Large parks of well-regulated locusts. 1822J. Flint Lett. Amer. 229 The black locust is strong, heavy, not much subject to warping. 1858Homans Cycl. Comm. 1272/1 There are, at least, three popular varieties of the common locust... 1. Red Locust... 2. Green, or Yellow Locust... 3. White Locust. 1869Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. 201 Honey locust (Gleditschia triacanthos).
b. U.S. = locust-club (see 6).
1863D. M. Barnes Draft Riots N.Y. 82 Go in they did forthwith, and, where moral suasion had failed, the locusts succeeded. 1865G. A. Sala My Diary in Amer. II. 211 The New York policeman wears a handsome uniform. At his side hangs a club or bludgeon... This club is made of ‘locust wood’..and by rowdies the policeman is often generically called..a ‘locust’. 1882McCabe New York xxiii. 383 ‘Give them the locusts, men’, came in sharp ringing tones from the Captain. 1904N.Y. Tribune 19 June 4 The policemen did not carry their ‘locusts’. 1930E. H. Lavine Third Degree 78 A detective picked out the largest and heaviest locust in the group.
6. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 1) locust-army, locust-flesh, locust horde, locust host, locust legion, locust swarm; (senses 4, 5) locust fruit, locust timber, locust treenail; locust-fashion, locust-like advs.; locust-bean, the fruit of the carob tree; locust-beetle = locust-borer; locust-berry, the fruit of the West Indian locust, Byrsonima (Malpighia) coriacea; also, the tree itself; locust-bird, (a) a name given in S. Africa to Creatophora carunculata; also to Ciconia alba (great locust-bird) and Glareola nordmanni (little locust-bird); (b) the rose-coloured starling, Pastor roseus; all these birds devour locusts; locust-borer, a longicorn beetle, Cyllene robiniæ, whose larva destroys the locust-tree; locust club, a club made of the wood of the locust-tree, used by U.S. police; locust-eater, a bird of the genus Gryllivora; locust-eating a., rendering mod.L. gryllivorus; locust flower, the flower of Robinia Pseudacacia; locust-lobster, a crustacean of the family Scyllaridæ; locust post, a post made of the wood of the locust-tree (Robinia); locust shrimp, the squilla or mantis-shrimp; locust stick = locust club; locust wood, the wood of a locust-tree; locust years, years of poverty and hardship (see also quot. 19621).
1727–46Thomson Summer 1057 Fetid fields With *locust-armies putrifying heap'd.
1847R. W. Church Let. 14 Feb. in Life & Lett. (1897) 82 The trees are very few [round Valetta]—scattered, black, shrubby carobas (or *locust-bean) are the most numerous. 1958L. Durrell Balthazar ii. 32 He would pick a stick of sugar-cane off a stall as he passed..or a sweet locust-bean. 1972Country Life 30 Nov. 1481/1 Locust beans don't attack the teeth as jube-jubes did.
1756P. Browne Jamaica 215 It seems to have a near resemblance to the *Locust-berry tree.
1776A. Russell Aleppo 70 The *locust-bird..is about the size and shape of a starling and seems of that species... The plumage on the body is of a flesh-colour; the head, neck, wings, and tail, are black. 1867Layard Birds S. Africa 291 Glareola Nordmanni,..Small Locust-bird of Colonists. Ibid. 314 Ciconia Alba,..The White Stork, Gould..Great Locust-Bird of Colonists. 1874Froude S. Afric. Notes 13–19 Dec., An army of locust-birds. 1884H. B. Tristram Fauna & Flora Palestine 73 The Rose-coloured Pastor is well known to the natives as the Locust Bird, from its habit of preying on that pest, whose flights it generally follows.
1839H. Colman 2nd Rep. Agric. Mass. (Mass. Agric. Survey) 100 *Locust-Borer... [He] washed his locust trees with spirits of turpentine, and in that way compelled the borer to leave them. 1972Swan & Papp Common Insects N. Amer. 448 Locust borer: Megacyllene robiniae... The larvae bore in the sapwood of black locust.
1887Sat. Rev. 9 Apr. 529 Rioters..brained by the *locust clubs of the New York police.
1837Swainson Nat. Hist. Birds II. 66 The resemblance between Petroica bicolor and the genuine *locust-eaters (Gryllivora) is..remarkably strong.
1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) II. 156 The *locust-eating thrush. To this new species..Mr. Barrow has affixed the specific name of Gryllivorus. 1816Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xvi. (1818) II. 9 The locust-eating Thrush.
1890‘R. Boldrewood’ Miner's Right (1899) 106/2 That no hated aliens..should be suffered to..spread themselves *locust-fashion over their beloved shallow ground.
1855Browning Saul ix, The *locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher.
1899E. J. Chapman Drama Two Lives, Lake Scenes 96 Pink-lipp'd *locust flowers, Hanging in thousands.
1703W. Dampier Voy. III. 70 Ingwa's are a Fruit like the *Locust Fruit, 4 Inches long, and one broad.
1890‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 257 The *locust hordes of travelling sheep.
1812Byron Ch. Har. i. xv, With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's *locust host.
1884J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. xviii. 334 The allied troops, in *locust legions, were pouring into Leipsic.
1602Warner Alb. Eng. x. lv. (1612) 243 Hir Guizards..into Scotland *Locusts-like in her pretext did swarme. 1855Cornwall 25 Locust-like, they had devoured the edibles, and left us remains which were neither tender nor tempting.
1778Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2) III. 1610/1 The locusta, or *locust-lobster. 1854A. Adams, etc. Man. Nat. Hist. 291 Locust-Lobsters (Scyllaridæ).
1747Rhode Island Col. Rec. (1860) V. 200 From a point where a *locust post was erected, [we] ran a line three miles north-east.
1870–80Nicholson Man. Zool. (ed. 6) 306 The *Locust Shrimp (Squilla mantis).
1919Wodehouse Coming of Bill (1920) i. i. 15 The policeman..relieved his feelings by dispersing the crowd with well-directed prods of his *locust stick.
1795Southey Joan of Arc v. 171 Who send their *locust swarms O'er ravaged realms. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxiv. 321 A locust-swarm of foragers.
1858Homans Cycl. Comm. 1271/2 The strength of *locust timber, as compared with other woods.
1866Treas. Bot. 987/1 Considerable quantities of these ‘*locust treenails’ are exported to this and other European countries.
1742W. Ellis Timber-Tree Improved II. xxxii. 166 Where the Natives can't get *Locust-wood, they use this to make their Bows. 1874Rep. Vermont Board Agric. II. 777 Clytus robiniae. The larvae feed upon locust wood.
[1611Bible Joel ii. 25 And I will restore to you the yeeres that the locust hath eaten.] 1948W. S. Churchill Second World War I. i. v. 52 (heading) The *Locust Years, 1931–1935. 1962Listener 19 July 107/3 Sir Winston Churchill applied the phrase, the locust years, to the middle thirties, when vigorous rearmament should have begun. 1962W. McElwee (title) Britain's locust years, 1918–1940. 1964P. Magnus King Edward VII xiii. 244 (heading) Locust years. 1970Times 27 May 8 Yet before these locust years of Labour, we had the Conservative years of rising prosperity.
▪ II. ˈlocust, v. rare—1.
[f. locust n.]
intr. To swarm and devour as locusts do.
1875Tennyson Q. Mary ii. i, This Philip and the black-faced swarms of Spain,..Come locusting upon us, eat us up.
▪ III. locust
variant of locus n.2 |