water strider
1
5.8
- noun
- /ˈwɔːtər ˈstraɪdər/
- US
:
zancuda de agua
- 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
An insect with long legs that moves quickly across the surface of water
An insect that moves across the surface of water without sinking
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.