cicada

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“
The air is full of the rattle of the cicada, which is like the sound of a loud cricket, or the 'r--r' of a corncraik's note going on for ever and ever; and the house lizard in the church goes cheep--cheep--cheep every now and then.

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Definitions (6)

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  1. noun Any of various insects of the family Cicadidae, having a broad head, membranous wings, and in the male a pair of resonating organs that produce a characteristic high-pitched, droning sound. Also called cicala.

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Examples (50)

  • If the rifts in the argument are in any sense supplied, it is by the brief snatches of song which intervene between the Fancies , as the cicada-note filled the pauses of the broken string. —  Robert Browning
  • Of the nest and the cocoon of the victim the intruder makes its own nest, its own cocoon, and in the following year, instead of the master of the house, he will emerge from underground as the usurping bandit, the devourer of the inhabitant While the cicada is absorbed in laying her eggs an insignificant fly labours to destroy them. —  Fabre, Poet of Science
  • In the ancient world, the cicada was often linked to immortality because of its unusual metamorphosis from egg to adulthood.
  • A fellow hemipteran insect, the Fiery Beaked Lantern Bug, like the cicada was resting on another tree trunk.
  • Check out Heather's flaming cicada, after the jump. ... —  BME: Tattoo, Piercing and Body Modification News
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Latin cicāda.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also cicala (after Italian); = French cigale = Provencal cicala = Spanish Portuguese cigarra = Italian cigala, cicala, from Latin cicada (Middle Latin also cicala), the cicada or tree-cricket. In Greek called τέττιξ.
 

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/sɪˈkeɪdə/
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