locust

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous grasshoppers of the family Acrididae, often migrating in immense swarms that devour vegetation and crops.
2. n. The seventeen-year locust.
3. n. Any of several North American deciduous trees of the genus Robinia, especially R. pseudoacacia, having compound leaves, drooping clusters of fragrant white flowers, and durable hard wood.
4. n. Any of several similar or related trees, such as the honey locust or the carob.
5. n. The wood of one of these trees.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One of the orthopterous saltatorial insects of the family Acridiiæ, popularly known as grasshoppers, and more correctly called short-horned grasshoppers. Thus, Rocky Mountain locust is a common, popular, and book name of Caloptenus or Melanoplus spretus, also popularly known by its other name of the western or hateful grasshopper. Locusts, in this sense, are allied to the long-horned grasshoppers and the crickets, but differ from them in having shorter antennæ and bodies and limbs more robust. Their hind legs are large and strong, which gives them great power in leaping. Their mandibles and maxillæ are strong, sharp, and jagged, and their food consists of the leaves and green stalks of plants. They have colored elytra and large wings, disposed when at rest in straight folds. They fly well, but are often conveyed by winds to distances which they could not have attained by their own power. Their ravages are well known. Locusts are eaten in many countries, roasted or fried. They are often preserved in lime or dried in the sun. The most celebrated species is the migratory locust of the East, Pachytylus migratorius. It is about 2½, inches long, greenish, with brown wing-covers marked with black. Migratory locusts are most commonly found in Asia and Africa, where they frequently swarm in countless numbers, darkening the air in their excursions, and devouring every blade of the vegetation of the land they alight on.
2. n. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the genus Locusta, family Locustidæ.
3. n. A homopterous insect of the genus Cicada, family Cicadidæ, such as the harvest-fly, Cicada tibicon, and the seventeen-year locust, or periodical cicada, Cicada septendecim. See cut under Cicadidæ.
4. n. A cockchafer; a beetle.
5. To devour and lay waste like locusts; ravage.
6. n. A well-known tree of the United States, Robinia Pseudacacia, with thorny branches, delicate pinnate leaves, and dense clusters of white heavily scented flowers. The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and very durable, and useful for treenails, posts, turnery, etc. The tree is extensively planted for ornament, and also as a timber-tree. It suffers from attacks of the locust-borer. Also called black or yellow locust, and false or bastard acacia. The related R. Neomexicana is also called locust. The locust-tree of Guiana and the West Indies is Hymenæa Courbaril. In the West Indies, Byrsonima coriacea and B. cinerea of the Malpighiaceæ are also called locust.
7. n. The carob-tree, Ceratonia Siligua. See Ceratonia and carob.
8. n. The wood of the locust-tree.
9. n. A club or billy used by policemen: so called because commonly made of locust-wood.

Wiktionary

1. n. A type of grasshopper in the family Acrididae that flies in swarms and is very destructive to crops and other vegetation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any one of numerous species of long-winged, migratory, orthopterous insects, of the family Acrididæ, allied to the grasshoppers; esp., (Edipoda migratoria, syn. Pachytylus migratoria, and Acridium perigrinum, of Southern Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the United States the related species with similar habits are usually called grasshoppers. See grasshopper.
2. n. The locust tree. See Locust Tree (definition, note, and phrases).

WordNet 3.0

1. n. migratory grasshoppers of warm regions having short antennae
2. n. hardwood from any of various locust trees
3. n. any of various hardwood trees of the family Leguminosae