rice weevil
- noun
- /raɪs ˈwiːvəl/
:
gorgojo del arroz
- Proper storage methods can help prevent rice weevils from destroying grain supplies.
Examples
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The warehouse lost much of its rice stock to a rice weevil infestation.
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A rice weevil can ruin an entire bag of rice.
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A single rice weevil can lay hundreds of eggs inside grains of rice.
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Many rice weevils can infest a single grain storage.
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The rice weevil can destroy an entire bag of grains if left untreated.
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Farmers often use traps to catch rice weevils before they infest their stored harvest.
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When inspecting the pantry, I found a rice weevil crawling among the rice bags.
Synonyms
15
7.0
A small beetle with a long snout that eats plants or stored grain
1
6.2
A small insect that lives in flour and stored grains and spoils food
A small brown insect that eats and damages stored rice
A small black beetle that eats stored rice and grain
A group of small beetles that attack stored grain in houses or stores
A small beetle with a long nose that often damages crops like grain and nuts
A small beetle that lives in and eats stored flour and grains
A small beetle that lives in and eats stored grain and flour
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is transparently compositional: 'rice' names the host/food and 'weevil' names a type of beetle, so the compound straightforwardly denotes a weevil associated with rice. This host+pest compound pattern is common cross-linguistically and would be predictable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Rice weevil is a simple, literal name: a small beetle called a weevil that gets into grains of rice and eats them from the inside, so the name means 'a small pest that infests stored rice'.