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Glite Dictionary
pink bollworm

pink bollworm

8.6
A small caterpillar that eats seeds inside cotton bolls and damages cotton plants
  • noun
  • /pɪŋk bɔlˌwɜrm/
  • Specialized
translation icon : gusano rosado del algodón
  • The pink bollworm first infested cotton plants in Texas in 1917.
  • genetically engineered pink bollworm
  • engineered pink bollworms

Examples

  • In California, a lethal gene has been inserted into the crop-damaging pink bollworm.

    Academic text (1999)

  • They harvested the early cotton before populations of pink bollworms had a chance to build up to troublesome levels.

    Academic text (2000)

  • In California, a lethal gene has been inserted into the crop-damaging pink bollworm.

  • They harvested the early cotton before populations of pink bollworm had a chance to build up to troublesome levels.

Synonyms

Gelechia gossypiella
vspink bollworm
  • Specialized
9.9

A small brown moth whose young eat and damage cotton plants

focuses on larvae eating seeds inside cotton bolls

Surface Forms

pink bollworm singular
pink bollworms plural

Morphology

pink + bollworm

This is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: 'pink' describes a color and 'bollworm' names the caterpillar pest, so the phrase denotes a bollworm that is pink (a particular pest/variety). The meaning follows normal adjectival modification and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reliably infer the MWE's sense.

Etymology

Pink bollworm comes from a simple picture: the young insect is often pale pink and it lives and eats inside cotton 'bolls', so people called it a pink boll worm. That's why the name tells you it is a tiny pink 'worm' that damages cotton and is a serious farm pest.