garden centipede
- noun
:
ciempiés de jardín
- The garden centipede can cause significant damage to the roots of young tomato plants.
Examples
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Gardeners often check the soil for garden centipedes when their crops show signs of wilting.
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Applying organic mulch may help deter garden centipede infestations in the vegetable patch.
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I found a garden centipede in my vegetable patch.
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The garden centipedes are damaging my crops!
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Applying organic mulch may help deter garden centipede infestations in the vegetable patch.
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Gardeners often check the soil for garden centipedes when their crops show signs of wilting.
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The garden centipede can cause significant damage to the roots of young tomato plants.
Synonyms
A small soil creature like a tiny centipede that damages plant roots in greenhouses and gardens
A small soil animal like a tiny centipede that lives in rotting plant material
A very small animal that lives in soil and eats plant roots in gardens or greenhouses
A very small many-legged animal that lives in soil and eats plant roots
Small soil animals that look like tiny centipedes and can eat plant roots
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is a straightforward compositional compound: 'centipede' modified by the location 'garden', so it denotes a centipede found in or associated with gardens/vegetable plots. This literal modifier–noun formation is cross-linguistically common and fully derivable from the constituent meanings, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand it.
Etymology
Garden centipede comes from the simple picture of a centipede (a very small animal with many legs) living in a garden, hiding in the soil and near plant roots. So, the name means 'a small many‑legged creature found in garden soil that can damage roots'.
