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green peach aphid

green peach aphid

8.4
A small green insect that eats peach trees and other crops, often damaging them
  • noun
  • /ɡrin piːtʃ ˈeɪfɪd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pulgón verde del durazno
  • To protect their peach trees, gardeners use insecticides to eliminate green peach aphids.

Examples

  • One pest is the green peach aphid, a soft-bodied, sap-sucking insect that spreads 10 different potato viruses.

    Academic text (2003)
  • The green peach aphid damages the leaves of peach trees by sucking their sap.

  • Farmers often struggle to control the population of green peach aphids that infest their crops.

Surface Forms

Morphology

green + peach + aphid

The phrase is a straightforward descriptive noun compound: 'green' (color) + 'peach' (host/plant) + 'aphid' (sap-sucking insect) yields the meaning 'a green-colored aphid associated with peach trees'. This compositional pattern is literal and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Green peach aphid gets its name from how the insect looks and where it lives: it is a small green aphid that often feeds on peach trees. Because it eats plants and spreads disease, farmers call it a 'pest'.