Forms: 4–5 cri-, cryket(te, -at, crekytt, 5–6 creket(te, 7 kricket, crecket, 6– cricket. [a. OF. criquet, crequet (Marie de France, 12th c.) cicada, cricket, related to criquer ‘to creake, rattle, crackle’ (Cotgr.), and to MDu. crekel, Du. and LG. krekel cricket; all derivatives of an echoic krik-, imitating a sharp, abrupt, dry sound, such as is made by this insect.]
1. Any saltatorial orthopterous insect of the genus Acheta or of the same tribe; the best-known species are the common house-cricket, Acheta domestica, ‘an insect that squeaks or chirps about ovens and fireplaces’ (J.), the field-cricket, A. campestris, and mole-cricket, Gryllotalpa vulgaris.
In ME. identified with the fabulous Salamander.
c. 1325. Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 764. La salemaundre, a criket.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIV. 42. Fissch to lyue in þe flode and in þe fyre þe crykat.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. ix. (1495), 760. The Crekette hyght Salamandra: for thys beest quenchyth fyre and lyueth in brennynge fyre.
1530. Palsgr., 210/2. Cricket a worme, cricquet, gresillon.
1605. Shaks., Macb., II. ii. 16. I heard the Owle schreame, and the Crickets cry.
1632. Milton, Penseroso, 82. Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Dropsy, Five grains of the Ashes of Crickets, little Animals found in Baker’s Ovens.
1795. Southey, Hymn to Penates. Where by the evening hearth Contentment sits And hears the cricket chirp.
1846. Dickens (title), The Cricket on the Hearth.
1859. Tennyson, Elaine, 106. The myriad cricket of the mead.
b. Used for CICADA. (Cf. BALM-CRICKET.)
1864. Earl Derby, Iliad, III. 181. In discourse Abundant, as the cricket, that on high From topmost boughs of forest tree sends forth His delicate music.
c. transf. of a person.
1612. Beaum. & Fl., Coxcomb, IV. iii. Shee’le talke some times; ’tis the maddest cricket!
d. Prov. phrase. As merry (etc.) as a cricket.
1592. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., 158. As pleasant as a cricket.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 100. Prin. Shall we be merry? Poin. As merrie as Crickets, my Lad.
1720. Amherst, Ep. Sir J. Blount, 11. Make me merry as a Cricket.
1873. Holland, A. Bonnic., xvi. 253. Mullens had become as cheerful and lively as a cricket.
2. U.S. Savannah cricket (cf. cricket-frog in 3).
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 217. There is yet an extremely diminutive species of frogs, called by some, Savannah crickets, whose notes are not unlike the chattering of young birds or crickets.
3. Comb., as cricket-hole; cricket-bird, a local name for the grasshopper warbler (Locustella nævia); cricket-frog, a name for small tree-frogs of the genus Hylodes, which chirp like crickets; cricket-teal, a local name for the garganey (Querquedula circia).
1483. Cath. Angl., 80. Crekethole, grillarium.
