▪ I. locust, n.
(ˈləʊkəst)
Also (in sense 5) 7– locus.
[a. OF. locuste or L. locusta: see lobster1. The early ME. languste is a. OF. langouste (semi-popular ad. locusta, through logoste, longoste).]
1. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the family Acridiidæ (characterized by short horns), esp. Œdipoda migratoria (or Pachytylus migratorius), the Migratory Locust, well known for its ravages in Asia and Africa, where, migrating in countless numbers, it frequently eats up the vegetation of whole districts. Locusts are in many countries used for food.
In the Hebrew Bible there are nine different names for the insect or for particular species or varieties; in the Eng. Bible they are rendered sometimes ‘locust’, sometimes ‘beetle’, ‘grasshopper’, ‘caterpillar’, ‘palmerworm’, etc. The precise application of the several names is unknown. bald locust: in Lev. xi. 22 used to render the Heb. solﻋām, because the Talmud states that this word meant a locust with a smooth head.
| [c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 127 Wilde hunie and languste his mete.] a 1300 Cursor M. 6041 Þan sent drightin a litel beist, O toth es noght vnfelunest, Locust it hatt. a 1340 Hampole Psalter lxxvii. 51 Locustis ere bestis þat fleghis & etis kornes. 1382 Wyclif Ps. lxxvii[i]. 46 He ȝaf to rust the frutis of hem; and ther trauailis to a locust [Coverdale the greshopper, 1611 the locust]. 1526 Tindale Matt. iii. 4 Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony. 1611 Bible Lev. xi. 22 Euen these of them ye may eate: the Locust, after his kinde, and the Bald-locust after his kinde. 1638 Wilkins New World i. (1684) 184 Those great Multitudes of Locusts wherewith divers Countries have bin Destroyed. 1667 Milton P.L. xii. 185. 1742 Young Nt. Th. iii. 238 Thick as the locust on the land of Nile. 1802 Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) III. 166 The migratory locust. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xii. (1873) 327 Locusts are sometimes blown to great distances from the land. 1880 Disraeli Endym. i. xxxi. 288 The white ant can destroy fleets and cities, and the locusts erase a province. |
2. Applied to insects of other families.
a. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the genus
Locusta (family Locustidæ).
b. A homopterous insect of the genus
Cicada (family Cicadidæ);
e.g. the seventeen-year locust,
C. septendecim.
c. north. and
midl. dial. The cockchafer,
Melolontha vulgaris.
| 1623 Cockeram, Locusts, grashoppers. 1710 A. Philips Pastorals vi. 29 When Locusts in the Fearny Bushes cry. 1846 J. L. Stokes Discov. Australia I. ix. 285 The trees swarmed with large locusts (the cicada), quite deafening us with their shrill buzzing noise. 1854 Whittier Burns vii, I hear..The locust in the haying. 1860 G. Bennett Gatherings of a Naturalist xii. 270 Those noisy insects, the Tettigoniæ or Treehoppers, the Locusts of the colonists, are very numerous in New South Wales. 1862 Jobson Australia iv. 104 We heard everywhere on the gum-trees the cricket-like insects—usually called locusts by the colonists—hissing their reed-like monotonous noise. 1899 Daily News 26 July 8/2 The Cicadas, of which the 17-year Locust is one, are among the noisiest of insects. |
3. fig. (from 1). A person of devouring or destructive propensities.
| 1546 Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1560) 5 b, Theyr Byshoppes, Priestes, and Monkes, with other disguised Locustes of the same generation. 1587 Fleming Contn. Holinshed III. 1323/2 Certeine locusts of the popes seminaries..arriuing in England, and dispersing themselues into such places [etc.]. 1681 Dryden Sp. Fryar iii. 33 You promis'd to..bring your Regiment of Red Locusts upon me for Free-quarter. 1785 Burke Sp. Nabob Arcot Wks. IV. 285 All the territorial revenues have..been covered by those locusts, the English soucars. 1826 Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) II. 258 Those locusts called middle-men..who live..out of the labour of the producer and the consumer. 1840 Alison Europe (1849–50) VIII. l. §8. 127 An army of locusts in the form of..customhouse-officers..and other functionaries fell upon all the countries occupied by the French troops. |
4. a. The fruit of the carob tree; a locust-bean.
b. A cassia-pod, the fruit of
Cassia fistula.
[The
Gr. name ἀκρίς, properly denoting the insect, is applied in the Levant to the carob-pod, from some resemblance in form; and from very early times it has been believed by many that the ‘locusts’ eaten by John the Baptist were these pods. The application to the cassia-pod is due to confusion with the carob-pod.]
| 1615 G. Sandys Trav. ii. 121 Their fields, in which grow variety of excellent fruites; as..Dates, Almonds, Cassia fistula,..Locust, (flat, and of the forme of a cycle) [etc.]. 1718 Quincy Compl. Disp. 181 Cassia, or Locust. This is a kind of Pod or Cane, which grows upon a large Tree in some parts of Brazil. 1775 Ann. Reg. 92 Some have called the fruit [of the algarroba tree] locusts, and supposed it was the Baptist's food in the wilderness. |
5. a. = locust-tree (in its various senses).
| 1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. 1552 The second is called Locus by our Nation resident in Virginia. 1657 R. Ligon Barbadoes 74 The Locust is a tree, not unfitly to be resembled to a Tuscan Pillar. Ibid., Another Locust there is, which they call the bastard Locust. 1676 T. Glover Acc. Virginia in Phil. Trans. XI. 628 There is likewise black Walnut,..Gum-tree, Locust. 1764 Grainger Sugar Cane i. 34 Let thy biting ax..the tough locust fell. 1775 W. Emerson in Harper's Mag. (1883) Oct. 740/1 Large parks of well-regulated locusts. 1822 J. Flint Lett. Amer. 229 The black locust is strong, heavy, not much subject to warping. 1858 Homans Cycl. Comm. 1272/1 There are, at least, three popular varieties of the common locust... 1. Red Locust... 2. Green, or Yellow Locust... 3. White Locust. 1869 Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. 201 Honey locust (Gleditschia triacanthos). |
b. U.S. = locust-club (see 6).
| 1863 D. M. Barnes Draft Riots N.Y. 82 Go in they did forthwith, and, where moral suasion had failed, the locusts succeeded. 1865 G. A. Sala My Diary in Amer. II. 211 The New York policeman wears a handsome uniform. At his side hangs a club or bludgeon... This club is made of ‘locust wood’..and by rowdies the policeman is often generically called..a ‘locust’. 1882 McCabe New York xxiii. 383 ‘Give them the locusts, men’, came in sharp ringing tones from the Captain. 1904 N.Y. Tribune 19 June 4 The policemen did not carry their ‘locusts’. 1930 E. H. Lavine Third Degree 78 A detective picked out the largest and heaviest locust in the group. |
6. attrib. and
Comb., as (sense 1)
locust-army,
locust-flesh,
locust horde,
locust host,
locust legion,
locust swarm; (senses 4, 5)
locust fruit,
locust timber,
locust treenail;
locust-fashion,
locust-like advs.;
locust-bean, the fruit of the carob tree;
locust-beetle = locust-borer;
locust-berry, the fruit of the West Indian locust,
Byrsonima (Malpighia) coriacea; also, the tree itself;
locust-bird, (
a) a name given in S. Africa to
Creatophora carunculata; also to
Ciconia alba (
great locust-bird) and
Glareola nordmanni (
little locust-bird); (
b) the rose-coloured starling,
Pastor roseus; all these birds devour locusts;
locust-borer, a longicorn beetle,
Cyllene robiniæ, whose larva destroys the locust-tree;
locust club, a club made of the wood of the locust-tree, used by
U.S. police;
locust-eater, a bird of the genus
Gryllivora;
locust-eating a., rendering
mod.L.
gryllivorus;
locust flower, the flower of
Robinia Pseudacacia;
locust-lobster, a crustacean of the family Scyllaridæ;
locust post, a post made of the wood of the locust-tree (
Robinia);
locust shrimp, the squilla or mantis-shrimp;
locust stick = locust club;
locust wood, the wood of a locust-tree;
locust years, years of poverty and hardship (see also
quot. 1962
1).
| 1727–46 Thomson Summer 1057 Fetid fields With *locust-armies putrifying heap'd. |
| 1847 R. W. Church Let. 14 Feb. in Life & Lett. (1897) 82 The trees are very few [round Valetta]—scattered, black, shrubby carobas (or *locust-bean) are the most numerous. 1958 L. Durrell Balthazar ii. 32 He would pick a stick of sugar-cane off a stall as he passed..or a sweet locust-bean. 1972 Country Life 30 Nov. 1481/1 Locust beans don't attack the teeth as jube-jubes did. |
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 215 It seems to have a near resemblance to the *Locust-berry tree. |
| 1776 A. Russell Aleppo 70 The *locust-bird..is about the size and shape of a starling and seems of that species... The plumage on the body is of a flesh-colour; the head, neck, wings, and tail, are black. 1867 Layard Birds S. Africa 291 Glareola Nordmanni,..Small Locust-bird of Colonists. Ibid. 314 Ciconia Alba,..The White Stork, Gould..Great Locust-Bird of Colonists. 1874 Froude S. Afric. Notes 13–19 Dec., An army of locust-birds. 1884 H. B. Tristram Fauna & Flora Palestine 73 The Rose-coloured Pastor is well known to the natives as the Locust Bird, from its habit of preying on that pest, whose flights it generally follows. |
| 1839 H. Colman 2nd Rep. Agric. Mass. (Mass. Agric. Survey) 100 *Locust-Borer... [He] washed his locust trees with spirits of turpentine, and in that way compelled the borer to leave them. 1972 Swan & Papp Common Insects N. Amer. 448 Locust borer: Megacyllene robiniae... The larvae bore in the sapwood of black locust. |
| 1887 Sat. Rev. 9 Apr. 529 Rioters..brained by the *locust clubs of the New York police. |
| 1837 Swainson Nat. Hist. Birds II. 66 The resemblance between Petroica bicolor and the genuine *locust-eaters (Gryllivora) is..remarkably strong. |
| 1802 Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) II. 156 The *locust-eating thrush. To this new species..Mr. Barrow has affixed the specific name of Gryllivorus. 1816 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xvi. (1818) II. 9 The locust-eating Thrush. |
| 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Miner's Right (1899) 106/2 That no hated aliens..should be suffered to..spread themselves *locust-fashion over their beloved shallow ground. |
| 1855 Browning Saul ix, The *locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher. |
| 1899 E. J. Chapman Drama Two Lives, Lake Scenes 96 Pink-lipp'd *locust flowers, Hanging in thousands. |
| 1703 W. Dampier Voy. III. 70 Ingwa's are a Fruit like the *Locust Fruit, 4 Inches long, and one broad. |
| 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 257 The *locust hordes of travelling sheep. |
| 1812 Byron Ch. Har. i. xv, With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's *locust host. |
| 1884 J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. xviii. 334 The allied troops, in *locust legions, were pouring into Leipsic. |
| 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. x. lv. (1612) 243 Hir Guizards..into Scotland *Locusts-like in her pretext did swarme. 1855 Cornwall 25 Locust-like, they had devoured the edibles, and left us remains which were neither tender nor tempting. |
| 1778 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2) III. 1610/1 The locusta, or *locust-lobster. 1854 A. Adams, etc. Man. Nat. Hist. 291 Locust-Lobsters (Scyllaridæ). |
| 1747 Rhode Island Col. Rec. (1860) V. 200 From a point where a *locust post was erected, [we] ran a line three miles north-east. |
| 1870–80 Nicholson Man. Zool. (ed. 6) 306 The *Locust Shrimp (Squilla mantis). |
| 1919 Wodehouse Coming of Bill (1920) i. i. 15 The policeman..relieved his feelings by dispersing the crowd with well-directed prods of his *locust stick. |
| 1795 Southey Joan of Arc v. 171 Who send their *locust swarms O'er ravaged realms. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxiv. 321 A locust-swarm of foragers. |
| 1858 Homans Cycl. Comm. 1271/2 The strength of *locust timber, as compared with other woods. |
| 1866 Treas. Bot. 987/1 Considerable quantities of these ‘*locust treenails’ are exported to this and other European countries. |
| 1742 W. Ellis Timber-Tree Improved II. xxxii. 166 Where the Natives can't get *Locust-wood, they use this to make their Bows. 1874 Rep. Vermont Board Agric. II. 777 Clytus robiniae. The larvae feed upon locust wood. |
| [1611 Bible Joel ii. 25 And I will restore to you the yeeres that the locust hath eaten.] 1948 W. S. Churchill Second World War I. i. v. 52 (heading) The *Locust Years, 1931–1935. 1962 Listener 19 July 107/3 Sir Winston Churchill applied the phrase, the locust years, to the middle thirties, when vigorous rearmament should have begun. 1962 W. McElwee (title) Britain's locust years, 1918–1940. 1964 P. Magnus King Edward VII xiii. 244 (heading) Locust years. 1970 Times 27 May 8 Yet before these locust years of Labour, we had the Conservative years of rising prosperity. |
▪ II. ˈlocust, v. rare—1.
[f. locust n.] intr. To swarm and devour as locusts do.
| 1875 Tennyson Q. Mary ii. i, This Philip and the black-faced swarms of Spain,..Come locusting upon us, eat us up. |
▪ III. locust variant of
locus n.2