Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To produce a shrill grating, chirping, or hissing sound by rubbing body parts together, as certain insects do.
- intransitive verb To produce by rubbing body parts together.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make a stridulous noise, as an insect; effect stridulation, as the cicada; grate, scrape, or creak with the organs of stridulation; shrill; chirr.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb (Zoöl.) To make a shrill, creaking noise.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive To make a
high-pitched chirping, grating, hissing, or squeaking sound, as malecrickets andgrasshoppers do, by rubbing certain body parts together.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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When disturbed by a would be attacker the caterpillars stridulate by rubbing their mouth parts together, creating broadband chirps spanning from 3.7-55.1 kHz.
Caterpillars Utilize Sound and Stench As Defense | Impact Lab 2009
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When disturbed by a would be attacker the caterpillars stridulate by rubbing their mouth parts together, creating broadband chirps spanning from 3.7-55.1 kHz.
Caterpillars Utilize Sound and Stench As Defense | Impact Lab 2009
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It required a considerable effort on the thranx's part not to stridulate wildly as he entered.
Diuturnity's Dawn Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 2002
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It required a considerable effort on the thranx's part not to stridulate wildly as he entered.
Diuturnity's Dawn Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 2002
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Many insects stridulate by rubbing together specially modified parts of their hard integuments.
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I then removed the antennæ of the male, and again made the female stridulate; the male heard her, and at once crawled toward her, although his antennæ were entirely removed.
The Dawn of Reason or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals James Weir 1881
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These factors set them very far apart from their Latin-derived associates, which are uniformly multisyllabic and which have differing noun and verb forms, for example: latrate (like a dog) and latration; stridulate (like a cricket or grasshopper) and stridulation; and ululate (like a dog, jackal, wolf, or owl) and ululation.
fbharjo commented on the word stridulate
lets make a racket, jacket
May 12, 2008
yarb commented on the word stridulate
A window was open, and the crickets were stridulating at an ominous speed in the black motionless foliage.
- Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor.
May 17, 2008
michaelt42 commented on the word stridulate
While at least one dictionary says that (only) males stridulate, Darwin showed that stridulating females attract males that have had their antennae removed
March 26, 2014
qms commented on the word stridulate
In Provence the cicadas pullulate
And noisily rasp to woo a new mate.
Their signature song
Is raucous and strong
As assiduously they stridulate.
Or is joy obtained in isolation?
In inward-focused stridulation?
It's past all measuring,
Such vast self-pleasuring,
An insect riot of masturbation!
March 26, 2014
bilby commented on the word stridulate
I would never do that on a first date.
March 26, 2014