cicada - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

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An adult cicada

Borrowed from Latin cicāda, ultimately onomatopoeic. Doublet of cicala.

cicada (plural cicadas or cicadae or (archaic) cicadæ)

  1. Any of several insects in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with small eyes wide apart on the head and transparent well-veined wings.
    • 2012 March-April, Anna Lena Phillips, “Sneaky Silk Moths”, in American Scientist‎[1], volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 19 February 2013, page 172:
      Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.
    1. The periodical cicada.
      • 2011, Robert Evans Snodgrass, Insects: Their Ways and Means of Living‎[2], page 217:
        The emergence years of the principal cicada broods have now been recorded for a long time, and the oldest record of a swarm is that of the appearance of the “locusts” in New England two hundred and ninety-five years ago.
      • 2013 May 16, Laura Kroon, “Magicidada coming to New Jersey on May 27”, in Hunterdon County Democrat:
        Last year, the Brood I cicadas were found in Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. The cicadas that will emerge in New Jersey this year are part of Brood II or The East Coast Brood. They will also be found in Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

any of several insects of the order Hemiptera

Unknown. Probably an onomatopoeic loanword from a lost Mediterranean substrate language.[1] Compare also Sanskrit चिश्चिर (ciścira, “cicada”).

| | This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “A cursory search for चिश्चिर (ciścira) returns a result at https://www.learnsanskrit.cc. However, print dictionaries + etymological dictionaries don't seem to mention the Sanskrit word. Is there other corroboration for its existence?” | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

cicāda f (genitive cicādae); first declension

  1. cicada, tree-cricket
    • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Vergilius, Georgicon 3.327–330:
      Inde, ubi quarta sitim caeli collegerit hora,
      Et cantu quaerulae rumpent arbusta cicadae,
      Ad puteos aut alta greges ad stagna jubebo
      currentem ilignis potare canalibus undam;
      […]
      * Translation by James B. Greenough, 1900
      When heaven's fourth hour draws on the thickening drought,
      And shrill cicalas pierce the brake with song,
      Then at the well-springs bid them, or deep pools,
      From troughs of holm-oak quaff the running wave:
      […]

First-declension noun.

Reflexes of the late variant cicāla:

Reflexes of an assumed variant *cicār(r)a:

  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 112

cicada

  1. definite nominative/accusative singular of cicadă