Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Any true bug of the heteropterous section Hydrocorisæ or Cryptocerata, including those which live beneath the surface of the water. and belong to the families Corisidæ, Notonectidæ, Nepidæ, Belostomidæ, and Naucoridæ. See these words, and cuts under
Belostoma and Ranatra. - noun Any one of certain true bugs of the heteropterous section Aurocorisa, including those which live mainly on the surface of the water, and which belong to the families Hydrobatidæ, Veliidæ, Limnobatidæ, Saldidæ, and Hydrometridæ. See these words.
- noun The croton-bug or German cockroach, Blatta (Phyllodromia) germanica: so called from its preference for water-pipes and moist places in houses. See cuts under
croton-bug and Blattidæ
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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In your lunch bag put a large dead water-bug cockroach in a clear plastic bag on top of the container which holds your sandwich.
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You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for they furrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without rippling it perceptibly.
Walden 2004
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There's one, for instance, where I emerge into a sepia-toned Manhattan, its skyscrapers covered by the chitinous shells of massive insects with water-bug antennae waving menacingly from their roofs.
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Some kind of a water-bug has plumped right down onto my head, and left a lot of sticky sand on it, that the water does not wash away.
Lord Dolphin Harriet A. Cheever
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The giant water-bug is the large, broad, grayish-brown insect that is found on the sidewalks in May and June mornings.
Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study Ontario. Ministry of Education
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The gnat is a case in point: the water-bug, common in our ponds and ditches, is another.
Chatterbox, 1905. Various
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The potato-beetle, giant water-bug, eastern swallow-tail butterfly, and promothea moth are insects suitable as types to be studied by the pupils of Form I.
Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study Ontario. Ministry of Education
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The illustration shows the 'lancet' of _nepa_, the water-bug.
Chatterbox, 1905. Various
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The boat streaked across the river's surface like a water-bug.
Hunters Out of Space Joseph Everidge Kelleam 1944
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It happened to be water-bug poison, and Sylvanus was nearly killed by the dose.
Cy Whittaker's Place Joseph Crosby Lincoln 1907
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