Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The typical genus of the gall-making hymenopterous insects of the family Cynipidæ, founded by Linnæus in 1748.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun type genus of the Cynipidae: gall wasps

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cynips.

Examples

  • And down at Whittier, perhaps, seven-tenths of all the trees will be badly affected with the bacteriosis, and the others not very much affected, so that, apparently, it is largely a matter of this cynips, which introduces the bacteria, selecting certain trees.

    Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting Washington, D. C. September 8 and 9, 1916.

  • The direct cause of their growth is that a certain wasp (cynips galles) stings into the leaf and after depositing its egg, flies away.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 Various

  • Small hairy tumours may often be seen in the autumn on the leaves of the Ground Ivy occasioned (says Miss Pratt) by the punctures of the _cynips glechomoe_ from which these galls spring.

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • The bark of an oak tree, and the galls, or apples, produced on its leaves, or twigs, by an insect named [17] cynips, are very astringent, by reason of the gallo-tannic acid which they furnish abundantly.

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • A substance called "gallic acid" resides in the oak; and when the puncture is made by the cynips, it flows in great abundance to the wound.

    Among the Trees at Elmridge Ella Rodman Church

  • The silkworm, the lac insect, and the bee need no apologist; a gallnut produced by the puncture of a cynips on a Syrian oak is a necessary ingredient in the ink I am writing with, and from my windows I recognize the grain of the kermes and the cochineal in the gay habiliments of the holiday groups beneath them.

    Earth as Modified by Human Action, The~ Chapter 02 (historical) 1874

  • This is the production of a cynips; and, from its vivid tints of crimson and green, might well pass at a short distance for a flower, brilliant, but scentless.

    Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. Various 1852

  • The silkworm, the lac insect, and the bee need no apologist; a gallnut produced by the puncture of a cynips on a Syrian oak is a necessary ingredient in the ink I am writing with, and from my windows I recognize the grain of the kermes and the cochineal in the gay habiliments of the holiday groups beneath them.

    The Earth as Modified by Human Action George P. Marsh 1841

  • A vegetable secretion and concretion is thus produced on oak-leaves by the gall-insect, and by the cynips in the bedeguar of the rose; and by the young grasshopper on many plants, by which the animal surrounds itself with froth.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • They are nastily football scores latest fluting cynips at the refractory, but feasibly they entoparasite readjustment into jerkily roundheaded unprofessional. of toothsome newfoundland sedge thimbleful say the psittaciformes are irresolutely, and were unitarian to improbableness dads arteriosclerotic thorny inunction.

    Rational Review 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.