MOTH

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Typically crepuscular or nocturnal insect having a stout body and feathery or hairlike antennae

Classified under:

Hypernyms ("moth" is a kind of...):

lepidopteran; lepidopteron; lepidopterous insect (insect that in the adult state has four wings more or less covered with tiny scales)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "moth"):

miller; moth miller (any of various moths that have powdery wings)

tortricid; tortricid moth (any of numerous small moths having lightly fringed wings; larvae are leaf rollers or live in fruits and galls)

lymantriid; tussock moth (dull-colored moth whose larvae have tufts of hair on the body and feed on the leaves of many deciduous trees)

geometrid; geometrid moth (slender-bodied broad-winged moth whose larvae are called measuring worms)

pyralid; pyralid moth (usually tropical slender-bodied long-legged moth whose larvae are crop pests)

tineoid; tineoid moth (small dull-colored moth with chewing mouthparts)

gelechiid; gelechiid moth (small slender-winged moths whose larvae are agricultural pests)

noctuid; noctuid moth; owlet moth (usually dull-colored medium-sized nocturnal moth; the usually smooth-bodied larvae are destructive agricultural pests)

hawk moth; hawkmoth; hummingbird moth; sphingid; sphinx moth (any of various moths with long narrow forewings capable of powerful flight and hovering over flowers to feed)

bombycid; bombycid moth; silkworm moth (moderate-sized Asiatic moth whose larvae feed on mulberry leaves and produce silk)

saturniid; saturniid moth (large brightly colored and usually tropical moth; larvae spin silken cocoons)

arctiid; arctiid moth (stout-bodied broad-winged moth with conspicuously striped or spotted wings; larvae are hairy caterpillars)

lasiocampid; lasiocampid moth (medium-sized stout-bodied neutral-colored moths with comb-like antennae)

Malacosoma americana; tent-caterpillar moth (moth whose larvae are tent caterpillars)

Derivation:

mothy (infested with moths)

Credits

Context examples:

Other insects that are camouflaged, such as the brown larch ladybird or green winter moth caterpillar, are fed on by great tits and their young, said Thorogood.

(Birds learn from each other’s ‘disgust’, enabling insects to evolve bright colours, University of Cambridge)

A taxonomic class of arthropods that includes praying mantises, dragonflies, grasshoppers, true bugs, flies, bees, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and beetles.

(Insect, NCI Thesaurus)

As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

“When Em'ly got strong again,” said Mr. Peggotty, after another short interval of silence, “she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What you want is the magnificent abandon of life, the great free souls, the blazing butterflies and not the little gray moths.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

In a moment the creature, beating and bumping along the wall like a huge moth within a gas-shade, came upon the opening, squeezed its hideous bulk through it, and was gone.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The team looked at the European corn borer moth (Ostrinia nubilalis) and pinpointed variation in two circadian clock genes that enable different populations of the moth to adapt their transitions to longer or shorter winters.

(Secrets to climate change adaptation uncovered in the European corn borer moth, National Science Foundation)