[Etymology unknown. Usually supposed to be a transferred sense of prec.; but this is merely a conjecture, without actual evidence, and it has not been shown how a word meaning ‘object of terror, bogle,’ became a generic name for beetles, grubs, etc. Sense 1 shows either connection or confusion with the earlier budde; in quot. 1783 shorn bug appears for ME. scearn-budde (-bude):—OE. scearn-budda dung-beetle, and in Kent the ‘stag-beetle’ is still called shawn-bug. Cf. Cheshire ‘buggin, a louse’ Holland).]
1. A name given vaguely to various insects, esp. of the beetle kind, also to grubs, larvæ of insects, etc. Now chiefly dial. and in U.S.; esp. with defining words, as field bug, harvest bug, May bug, June bug, potato bug: also fire-bug, in U.S. applied colloq. to an incendiary.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 74. Gods rare workmanship in the Ant, the poorest bugge that creeps.
1691. Ray, S. & E. C. Wds., Bugge: Any insect of the Scarabæi kind. It is, I suppose, a word of general use.
1710. Shaftesb., Charac., II. § 4 (1737), II. 314. The Bug which breeds the Butterfly.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), II. Blatta … a shorn bug, the chafer, or beetle.
1856. Sat. Rev., II. 12 July, 258/1. In the field bug, we have an instance of care extended much farther, and of a tender assiduity over its offspring equal to anything exhibited by man himself.
1861. Emerson, Cond. Life, ii. 38. A good tree … will grow in spite of blight or bug.
c. 1880. Whittier, in Harper’s Mag., Feb. (1883), 358/1. A big black bug came flying in.
2. spec. The Cimex lectularius, more fully bedbug or house-bug, a blood-sucking hemipterous insect found in bedsteads and other furniture, of a flattened form, and emitting an offensive smell when touched. b. Applied to insects of the order Hemiptera or Heteroptera, to which the bedbug belongs.
1622. Massinger & Dekker, Virgin Mart., III. iii. Harpax. Come, let my bosom touch you. Spungius. We have bugs, Sir.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 588. The Original of these Creatures called Bugs, is from Putrifaction.
1730. Southall, Buggs, 1. Buggs have been known to be in England above sixty Years, and every Season increasing upon us.
1798. W. Hutton, Autobiog., 40. The doctor visited me … and … said, ‘You are as safe as a bug in a rug.’
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., xv. (1852), 330. An attack (for it deserves no other name) of the Benchuca … the great black bug of the Pampas.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 721. The Geocorisæ or Land-Bugs, and the Hydrocorisæ or Water-Bugs.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. IV. i. 219. The Cimicidæ, or Bugs, belong to the order Hemiptera. Ibid., II. VI. v. 304.
3. Comb., as bug-bite, -destroyer, -fly, -killer; bug-agaric, Agaricus muscarius, ‘a mushroom that used to be smeared over bedsteads to destroy bugs’ (Prior, Plant-n.); bug-bane, Cimicifuga fœtida and other allied plants, used to drive away bugs; bug-wort = bug-bane.
1804. Bewick, Brit. Birds (1847), II. 165. It is made of … the roots of *bugbane, stalks of water lily, pond weed, and water violet.
1880. Libr. Univ. Knowl., III. 862. Cimicifuga, or bugbane, an herb of the order ranunculaceæ.
1760. Goldsm., Cit. W., lxviii. One doctor who is modestly content with securing them from *bugbites.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. xi. 88. Poisoned by bad cookery, blistered with bugbites.
1809. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), I. 135/1. The *bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight.
1711. Phil. Trans., XXVII. 352. 10 and 11 are *Bug-flies observed in the Woods about Hampsted Heath.
1791. Huddesford, Salmagundi, 111. Shrimp-scalders and *bug-killers.
