[L. buprestis, a. Gr. βούπρηστις, lit. ‘ox-burner’]
1. An unidentified insect of the ancients, very harmful to cattle; ‘perhaps of the genus Mylabris’ (Kirby and Spence).
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xiii. (1495), 773. This Burestes lyeth amonge herbes and grasse: and the oxe swalowyth this beste, and whan this Burestes is swalowed he chaufeth sodenly the lyuour of the oxe and makyth hym breke with grete payne and sorowe.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 377. There is a kind of insect or flie called Buprestis … kine and oxen catch much harme by this flie.
[1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1001. I have seen about Heidelberg two Buprestes like Scarabees.]
2. Zool. A genus of beetles, natives of the tropics, remarkable for brilliant coloring. Hence the family Buprestidæ, rarely anglicized as Buprestidans.
1835. Kirby, Hab. & Inst. Anim., II. xx. 364. The most splendid and brilliant of the whole Order, the Buprestidans.
