water strider
1
5.8
- noun
- /ˈwɔːtər ˈstraɪdər/
- US
- On a warm day, we watched as the water strider effortlessly glided across the pond's surface.
- water strider insect
Examples
-
Insects such as water striders take advantage of the surface tension when they skip across a pond—as if its surface were made of clear, flexible plastic.
Academic text (2007) -
Water striders eat insects that fall on the surface and will not affect the density of pond organisms. They cannot be ordered.
Academic text (1993) -
The predators (group 4) will eat all the other animals, except for the water striders, which eat insects that fall on the surface of the water.
Academic text (1993) -
The water strider uses its long legs to move swiftly without sinking into the water.
-
At the edge of the lake, the water strider danced along the surface, capturing our attention.
Synonyms
1
7.0
An insect that moves across the surface of water without sinking
1
6.2
An insect with long legs that moves quickly across the surface of water
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'water strider' is directly compositional: combining 'water' with 'strider' yields an entity that strides on water, which clearly points to an insect that moves across the water surface. This noun-noun compounding is a productive, cross-linguistically common pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reasonably infer the meaning.
Etymology
The name water strider comes from a small insect that seems to walk on water, and the part strider comes from the word 'stride' meaning a long step. Its very long legs spread its weight so it can move across the surface without sinking, so the name describes what it does today.