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locust Definition

lo·cust (kəst)

noun

  1. any of various large grasshoppers; specif., a migratory grasshopper often traveling in great swarms and destroying nearly all vegetation in areas visited
  2. seventeen-year locust
    1. a spiny tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) of the pea family, native to the E or Central U.S. and having long pendulous racemes of fragrant white flowers
    2. the yellowish, hard, durable wood of this tree
  3. any honeylocust
  4. carob (sense )

Etymology: ME < L locusta, prob. akin to lacerta, lizard

locust Synonyms

locust

n.

dog-day cicada, short-horned grasshopper, migratory grasshopper, beetle; see grasshopper, insect.

Locusts include: Rocky Mountain, western cricket, stone-cricket, Mormon cricket, seventeen-year, migratory, clumsy, bald, green-striped.

locust Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • eat: Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
  • bring: It blew across the land all that day and night, and when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts.
  • swarm: What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
  • control: This research is providing information that enhances our ability to predict swarming, and so offers the potential of earlier intervention to control locusts.
  • plague: In las vegas plague locusts with that he was people's hands.
  • see: Here we see the rice locust and red dragonfly on bamboo canes with pinks and hibiscus flowers.

Adjective modifier

  • fried: One evening, after eating too many fried locusts, he began day-dreaming and then told his dream as if it had really happened.
  • black: Of these, black locust has very durable timber.
  • 'cosmic: The publication of 'Cosmic Locusts ' is certainly a tribute to the success of the process thus far.
  • more: The environmental impact of the toxic waste is to create a new breed of more savory locust.
  • migratory: Colin Plant informs me that he has actually visited the Cambridgeshire establishment and has noted many escapes of Migratory Locusts in the surrounding hedgerows.
  • Black: Black locust, for protection against negative outside influences, including " psychic attack " .

Modifies a noun

  • swarm: In the north of the country, however, farmers face a further threat from locust swarms.
  • gum: Consumers are urged to check the labeling to see which contain the locust bean gum.
  • invasion: A repeat of last year's locust invasion would be catastrophic.
  • bean: Consumers are urged to check the labeling to see which contain the locust bean gum.
  • plague: DEC Niger crisis appeal The combination of drought and a locust plague has left 2.5m people in Niger struggling to survive acute food shortages.
  • outbreak: Some observers claim it is the worst locust outbreak for 25 years.

Noun used with modifier

  • desert: Every day a swarm of 50,000 million desert locusts eats the amount of food needed by 500,000 people for a year.
  • honey: Gleditsia triacanthos L. , the honey locust, may be found in cultivation as an ornamental tree.

Browse dictionary entries near locust

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