grasshopper

Etymology

It is formed from English grass + hopper,^[2][3][4][5] perhaps as a remodelling of the earlier grasshop, as the Shorter Oxford also takes it.^[2][6] The older form is from Old English gærshoppa (“grasshopper, locust”),^[3][7][8] recorded in Middle English as gras-hoppe, also greshoppe.^[7][3] The OED compares early modern Dutch grashopper (1588, in Kiliaan), German Grashüpfer from the 16th century and Old Swedish gräshoppare, all with the same meaning.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The name is first recorded as a supposed name for the hare, before 1300, in the poem on the names of the hare,^[2][3] and as a surname in the late 13th century.^[3][7] The insect itself appears about 1350, in a Nominale,^[2][3] and the OED considers that almost certainly the original meaning.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to the 14th century.^[4] The shorter form was much older: Old English has it for "locust",^[8][2] and a 12th-century gloss has greshoppe for Latin cicāda.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline traces the use as a term of reproach to Ecclesiastes 12:5.^[3] From 1556 a person could be called a grasshopper for being destructive or inconstant, and later, after the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, improvident;^[2][6] the verb "to live without planning ahead" follows from the same fable.^[2][6] The name then passed to things: an artificial fishing bait in 1676,^[2] a sprung piano part in 1807,^[2] a pump in 1884,^[2] a clock escapement in 1899,^[2] a light army aeroplane in 1939^[2] and a cocktail named for its green colour in 1949.^[2] American riverboats "grasshoppered" over sandbars on poles from 1873.^[2][4] In slang the word is rhyming slang for copper, a policeman, and probably for shopper, an informer;^[2][9] a pun on grass made it a marijuana user;^[2][9] and in Canberra it meant a tourist who descends on the town and eats everything in sight.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – greshoppe, the shorter form, glossing Latin cicāda.^[7]
• before 1300 – a name for the hare.^[2][3]
• c. 1350 – the jumping insect.^[2][3]
• 1556 – a person likened to a grasshopper, as destructive or inconstant.^[2]
• 1676 – an artificial fishing bait.^[2]
• 1807 – a part in the action of a piano.^[2]
• 1855 – verb, of an animal, to hunt grasshoppers.^[2]
• 1873 – verb, of a riverboat, to pass over a sandbar on poles.^[2]
• 1884 – a pump for drawing oil from the ground.^[2]
• 1899 – a type of clock escapement.^[2]
• 1917 – verb, to live frivolously, after the fable.^[2]
• 1921 – a policeman, in rhyming slang.^[9] The Shorter Oxford dates this to the late 19th century.^[6]
• 1930 – an informer, in slang.^[9]
• 1939 – a small army observation aeroplane, in American military slang.^[2]
• 1949 – a green cocktail.^[2]
• 1963 – a marijuana user, in slang.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plant-eating insect with long hind legs for jumping, the male usually making a chirping sound: A grasshopper landed on the fence and sprang away.^[10][4][2]
2. A person seen as flighty, improvident or destructive.^[2][6]
3. An artificial bait or fly used in angling.^[2][6]
4. A sprung part in the action of a piano that lets the hammer fall back.^[2][6]
5. (colloquial) A pump for raising oil from the ground; a pump jack.^[2]
6. A green cocktail of crème de menthe, crème de cacao and cream.^[10][2]
7. (US, military slang) A small light aeroplane used for observation or liaison.^[2][6]
8. (clockmaking) A type of escapement, in full a grasshopper escapement.^[2][6]
9. (rhyming slang) A policeman.^[2][9][6]
10. (slang) An informer.^[2][9]
11. (slang) A marijuana user.^[2][9]
12. knee-high to a grasshopper: very young or very small.^[10][6]

Verb

1. To jump like a grasshopper, or to move suddenly from one thing to another.^[2][6]
2. To live frivolously without preparing for the future.^[2][6]
3. (US) To move a riverboat over a sandbar or through shallows with poles.^[2][4][6]
4. To fish with a grasshopper as bait.^[4]

Word family

• long-horned grasshopper
• short-horned grasshopper
• grasshopper mouse
• grasshopper sparrow
• grasshopper warbler
• grasshopper escapement

Related words

• grass
• hop
• hopper
• grasshop

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins