cicada killer
- noun
- /sɪˈkeɪdə ˈkɪlər/
- US
:
asesino de cigarras
- At the park, I watched a cicada killer carrying a cicada much larger than itself.
- a female cicada killer
Examples
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While cicada killers are large insects, so too are their only prey: the annual, or dog-day, cicadas, thus named because they emerge during the hottest days of summer.
Academic text (2002) -
Not all people familiar with cicada killers are fans of these insects, especially once they've seen the dramatic pockmarking of their lawns caused by the females' prodigious digging.
Academic text (2002) -
Among female cicada killers, these spurs may have taken on a secondary function in digging.
Academic text (2002) -
Although the cicada killer's digging tools don't follow this common pattern, they do get the job done.
Academic text (2002) -
Despite its name, only the female cicada killer actually hunts cicadas.
Academic text (2002) -
A female cicada killer struggles to drag her oversized prey to her burrow.
Academic text (2002) -
After several failed attempts at dragging its large quarry up the trunk, the cicada killer eventually dropped the prey and flew away.
Academic text (2002) -
This improved digging efficiency could allow a female cicada killer to excavate more extensive burrows or to complete a burrow faster.
Academic text (2002) -
When excavating their burrows, female cicada killers loosen the soil by biting at the compact earth with their mandibles.
Academic text (2002) -
The female cicada killer hunts for cicadas to bring back to her burrow as food for her young.
Synonyms
45
1.0
A flying insect like a bee with a narrow waist and a sting, often yellow and black
A large North American wasp with black or brown marks that hunts cicadas
A group of large wasps that live alone and catch cicadas
Large wasps that live alone and catch cicadas to feed their young
How Large
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun is compositionally built from 'cicada' + 'killer' and thus literally means an agent that kills cicadas; a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to some creature that preys on or kills cicadas. The fact that it denotes a specific wasp species does not block comprehension of the basic meaning, and the 'X killer' pattern is a transparent, cross-linguistic compound formation.
Etymology
The noun cicada killer comes from a large wasp that hunts cicadas. People saw the wasp sting or drag a cicada into a burrow to feed its young, so the word killer links to that literal scene and the name now means 'a wasp that hunts cicadas'.