footganger

See also: foot-ganger

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Perhaps from Dutch or Afrikaans voetganger (pedestrian, literally foot-goer), or a partial calque of German Fußgänger (pedestrian), equivalent to foot + ganger (goer, walker, stepper).

Noun

footganger (plural footgangers)

  1. (entomology) A juvenile locust or grasshopper while in its wingless or flightless phase.
    • 1902, Journal of the Society of Arts:
      Midway between Bloomfontein and Kimberley, while riding with Major Beresford, of the South African Constabulary, at the foot of some low hills in the Karoo bush, I came across great numbers of the footgangers.
    • 1904, Mark Sykes, John Hugh Smith, Edward Granville Browne, Dar-ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey Through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey:
      We passed several swarms of locusts in the footganger stage; but owing to the lateness of their appearance the damage they effected was slight, though we met many people coming from the west, whose crops had been utterly destroyed.
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