rhinoceros beetle
- noun
- /ˌraɪnəˈsɪrəs ˈbiːtəl/
:
escarabajo rinoceronte
- The gardener was concerned about the rhinoceros beetle damaging his coconut plants.
- coconut rhinoceros beetle
Examples
-
While exploring the jungle, I saw a large rhinoceros beetle crawling on a tree trunk.
-
MUSEUM OFFICE - DAY CLOSE ON a live, enormous rhinoceros beetle as it weaves its clumsy way among the men on a chessboard before finally stepping off the edge onto a lettuce leaf.
Fiction book (1991) -
A rhinoceros beetle scurried under a leaf, chased by another of its kind.
Fiction book (1993) -
Isolate that gene and combine it with, say, the growth rate of a blue whale, the strength of a rhinoceros beetle, the speed of a cheetah, And you get one confused gorilla that could take down a grizzly.
-
Children at the zoo marveled at the enormous rhinoceros beetle displayed in the insect exhibit.
Synonyms
A thick beetle with a rounded body and often horns on its head
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning — a beetle with horn-like projections — is directly and transparently derived from combining 'rhinoceros' (a horned mammal) with 'beetle' (an insect). This noun-noun compounding pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Rhinoceros beetle gets its name from the beetle's big horn, which looks like the horn of a rhinoceros. That's why the phrase refers to a large, very strong beetle with a horn, often found in warm countries.
