miller moth

miller moth (plural miller moths)

1. Any of several species of moths with pale, dusty wings
   • 1890, Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing, Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains, page 29

     One of those small white moths, known as '• millers," went past him. […]. Even the miller-moth had gone.

   • 1894, Thomas Hardy, "The Superstitious Man's Story", in Life's Little Ironies: A Set of Tales, with […] A Few Crusted Characters.

     [H]e saw one of those great white miller's souls as we call 'em — that is to say, a miller-moth — come from William's open mouth while he slept, and fly straight away.

   • 1984, Steven Laurence Kaplan, Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade, page 284

     They caught a large moth called a miller for its dusty white wings, […] after which they crushed the miller-moth for his misdeeds.

   1. Any of the cutworm moths in genus Agrotis or in tribe Agrotini
      1. especially the army cutworm (Euxoa auxiliaris), in America
2. Acronicta leporina, in Britain
3. Cossus cossus (goat moth)

• flour moth

• miller moth on Wikipedia.Wikipedia