tobacco budworm
- noun
- /təˈbækoʊ ˈbʌdˌwɜrm/
- Specialized
:
gusano del tabaco
- Farmers often struggle with the tobacco budworm, which can cause severe damage to their cotton crops.
Examples
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The tobacco budworm is notorious for infesting fields of corn and tomatoes, leading to significant yield losses.
-
Extremely high pesticide resistance had developed in the tobacco budworm population on cotton.
Academic text (1992) -
To prevent crop damage, many growers apply targeted insecticides to manage the tobacco budworm during the growing season.
Synonyms
1
8.7
A caterpillar that eats cotton bolls and other crops
A moth whose caterpillars eat crops like corn and cotton
A caterpillar that eats and damages crops like tomatoes and corn
A caterpillar that eats and damages corn and other crop plants
A caterpillar that eats and damages crops like cotton and corn
A caterpillar that eats and destroys crops like corn or tomatoes
A caterpillar that eats the buds of plants or trees and often damages crops
How Destructive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound literally combines 'tobacco' (the plant) with 'budworm' (a caterpillar that feeds on buds), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a caterpillar species that attacks tobacco buds. This is a straightforward, compositional noun compound common cross-linguistically, making the meaning predictable to B1 learners.
Etymology
Tobacco budworm comes from farmers finding small worms eating the buds of tobacco and other crops, so people named the pest after what it ate. So today tobacco budworm means 'a caterpillar that eats and damages the buds of crop plants'.