cicada

Wikispecies

An adult cicada

Borrowed from Latin cicada, ultimately onomatopoeic.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sɪˈkeɪ.də/, /sɪˈkɑː.də/, [sɪˈkʰeɪ̯.də], [sɪˈkʰɑː.də]
• (US) IPA^(key): /sɪˈkeɪ.də/, /sɪˈkɑ.də/, [sɪ̈ˈkʰeɪ̯.ɾə], [sɪ̈ˈkʰɑ.ɾə]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪdə, -ɑːdə

cicada (plural cicadas or cicadae)

1. Any of several insects in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with small eyes wide apart on the head and transparent well-veined wings.
   • 2012 March-April, Anna Lena Phillips, “Sneaky Silk Moths”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, page 172:

     Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.

   1. The periodical cicada.
      • 2011, Robert Evans Snodgrass, Insects: Their Ways and Means of Living, page 217:

        The emergence years of the principal cicada broods have now been recorded for a long time, and the oldest record of a swarm is that of the appearance of the “locusts” in New England two hundred and ninety-five years ago.

      • 2013 May 16, Laura Kroon, “Magicidada coming to New Jersey on May 27”, in Hunterdon County Democrat:

        Last year, the Brood I cicadas were found in Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. The cicadas that will emerge in New Jersey this year are part of Brood II or The East Coast Brood. They will also be found in Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

• (periodical cicada): seventeen-year locust, decim periodical cicada

• cricket
• grasshopper
• locust

Probably a loan-word from a lost Mediterranean language.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kiˈkaː.da/, [kɪˈkaː.da]

cicāda f (genitive cicādae); first declension

1. cicada, tree-cricket
2. vocative singular of cicāda

First declension.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kiˈkaː.daː/, [kɪˈkaː.daː]

cicādā

1. ablative singular of cicāda

• cicada in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• cicada in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cicada in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• cicada in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• cicada in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers