cicada

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cicāda (“cicada, tree cricket”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} used in Middle English;^[5][7] the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford also name the Latin variant cicāla.^[8][9][10] Merriam-Webster adds that the modern word is the New Latin genus name.^[6][11] The Latin word is not a native formation according to Etymonline, which takes it as perhaps a loan from a Mediterranean substrate language;^[3][4][12] Wilton, by contrast, calls it echoic, an imitation of the insect's sound,^[13] and Klein compares Latin ciconia (“stork”).^[12] The English variant with -l- is from Italian, and French cigale came, according to Weekley, from Provençal.^[14][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The singing insect of warm countries: before 1387, in John Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, according to Barnhart.^[4][15] The OED's first quotation is from another translation of the same work, in the Harley 2261 manuscript, dated before 1475;^[2] the 1989 edition of the OED had dated it 1432–50,^[16] and Wilton also places it in the 14th century, in Trevisa.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed rare for centuries: the Shorter Oxford notes that the usual English name in the 17th and 18th centuries was cigala,^[9] and Hoad and Collins date cicada itself only from the 19th century.^[10][17] The OED notes that the male's shrill chirping was much appreciated,^[2] and Wilton cites Pliny's account of the singing males and silent females, and Virgil's cicadas feeding on dew.^[13] The North American periodical cicadas, which live underground for thirteen or seventeen years, gave rise to the names seventeen-year cicada and periodical cicada,^[9][13] and the large wasp that preys on them has been called the cicada-killer since 1895.^[16]

Timeline

• before 1387 – the insect, in Trevisa's translation of the Polychronicon.^[4]
• before 1475 – the insect, in another translation of the Polychronicon.^[2]
• 1895 – cicada-killer, a digger wasp that hunts cicadas.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of a family of large insects with a broad head and transparent wings, the males of which make a loud, shrill droning sound with organs on the abdomen: The cicadas droned all afternoon in the pines.^{[17][18][11][9]}

Word family

• cicada killer
• dog-day cicada
• periodical cicada

Related words

• cicala
• cigala

Usage notes

The plural is cicadas, also cicadae.^[17][11] In the United States and Australia cicadas are often loosely called locusts;^[11][19] other American regional names include harvest fly, jarfly, July fly and heat bug.^[20][11]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c d Wilton, Dave, Wordorigins.org, wordorigins.org, p. "cicada", 17 May 2021
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
19. ^ Morris, Edward E. (1898), Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, London: Macmillan
20. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press