June bug
1
5.8
- noun
- /dʒuːn bʌɡ/
- US
:
escarabajo de junio
- "I have felt weather in my arm all day," Job said while fishing the June bugs from the water bucket with the drinking gourd.
- June bugs and moths
Examples
-
The light from her desk lamp lured a few fat June bugs away from the dark of night.
Blog text (23) -
She loved this hot, old, sticky night, she said, and the June bugs thumping against the screen, and she had forgotten how cigarettes get soft down here in the humid air.
Fiction book (1998) -
NATE: Get out the way, June bug!
-
and June bugs hover and dance,
Fiction book (1998) -
June bugs and moths buzzed lonely.
Blog text (23) -
The house looked exposed and naked in the white light, and even that didn't offer them security from things that take place in the dark, and they feared the lights would attract the devil people like they attracted the June bugs.
Fiction book (1990) -
But the June bug kept flipping and waggling before it had even gone an inch, and Mrs. Dillard went out of her way, it seemed, not to look at me.
Fiction book (1996) -
I plucked two June bugs off the screen and tried to line them up to race down a brick, but one flew off, and the other just flipped over and waggled its legs in the air.
Fiction book (1996) -
We gotta be careful, honey; my mama's gonna have Johnnie Farragut on us like a duck on a June bug, and he's one clever detective.
Fiction book (1990) -
At dusk, the garden was alive with the sound of June bugs buzzing around the porch light.
Synonyms
A large brown beetle that appears in late spring and whose larvae eat grass roots
A large beetle that appears in late spring whose larvae eat plant roots and can damage lawns
A large brown beetle that appears in late spring and whose young eat plant roots
A brown beetle like a May bug that often damages plants
A large shiny green beetle often seen on ripening fruit in early summer
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun combines the literal constituents 'June' (the month) and 'bug' (an insect), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to an insect associated with June or late spring. Although the exact species might be unknown, the referent and basic meaning are directly compositional and not idiomatic.
Etymology
June bug gets its name from the simple picture of a dark beetle that shows up in June, often flying to porch lights and easy for children to catch in jars. So the name 'June bug' means a common large brown beetle seen in late spring.