Locust sb.

Also (in sense 5) 7– locus. [a. OF. locuste or L. locusta: see LOBSTER¹. The early ME. languste is a. OF. langouste (semi-popular ad. locusta, through logoste, longoste).]

  1.  An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the family Acridiidæ (characterized by short horns), esp. Œdipoda migratoria (or Pachytylus migratorius), the Migratory Locust, well known for its ravages in Asia and Africa, where, migrating in countless numbers, it frequently eats up the vegetation of whole districts. Locusts are in many countries used for food.

  In the Hebrew Bible there are nine different names for the insect or for particular species or varieties; in the Eng. Bible they are rendered sometimes ‘locust,’ sometimes ‘beetle,’ ‘grasshopper,’ ‘caterpillar,’ ‘palmerworm,’ etc. The precise application of the several names is unknown. Bald locust: in Lev. xi. 22 used to render the Heb. solsām, because the Talmud states that this word meant a locust with a smooth head.

[c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 127. Wilde hunie and languste his mete.]

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 6041. Þan sent drightin a litel beist, O toth es noght vnfelunest, Locust it hatt.

a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter lxxvii. 51. Locustis ere bestis þat fleghis & etis kornes.

1382.  Wyclif, Ps. lxxvii[i]. 46. He ȝaf to rust the frutis of hem; and ther trauailis to a locust [Coverdale the greshopper, 1611 the locust].

1526.  Tindale, Matt. ii. 4. Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony.

1611.  Bible, Lev. xi. 22. Euen these of them ye may eate: the Locust, after his kinde, and the Bald-locust after his kinde.

1638.  Wilkins, New World, I. (1684), 184. Those great Multitudes of Locusts wherewith divers Countries have bin Destroyed.

1667.  Milton, P. L., XII. 185.

1742.  Young, Nt. Th., III. 238. Thick as the locust on the land of Nile.

1802.  Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), III. 166. The migratory locust.

1859.  Darwin, Orig. Spec., xii. (1873), 327. Locusts are sometimes blown to great distances from the land.

1880.  Disraeli, Endym., I. xxxi. 288. The white ant can destroy fleets and cities, and the locusts erase a province.

  2.  Applied to insects of other families. a. An orthopterous saltatorial insect of the genus Locusta (family Locustidæ). b. A homopterous insect of the genus Cicada (family Cicadidæ); e.g., the seventeen-year locust, C. septendecim. c. north. and midl. dial. The cockchafer, Melolontha vulgaris.

1623.  Cockeram, Locusts, grashoppers.

1710.  A. Philips, Pastorals, vi. 29. When Locusts in the Fearny Bushes cry.

1846.  J. L. Stokes, Discov. Australia, I. ix. 285. The trees swarmed with large locusts (the cicada), quite deafening us with their shrill buzzing noise.

1854.  Whittier, Burns, vii. I hear … The locust in the haying.

1860.  G. Bennett, Gatherings of a Naturalist, xii. 270. Those noisy insects, the Tettigoniæ or Treehoppers, the Locusts of the colonists, are very numerous in New South Wales.

1862.  Jobson, Australia, iv. 104. We heard everywhere on the gum-trees the cricket-like insects—usually called locusts by the colonists—hissing their reed-like monotonous noise.

1899.  Daily News, 26 July, 8/2. The Cicadas, of which the 17-year Locust is one, are among the noisiest of insects.

  3.  fig. (from 1). A person of devouring or destructive propensities.

1546.  Bale, Eng. Votaries, I. (1560), 5 b. Theyr Byshoppes, Priestes, and Monkes, with other disguised Locustes of the same generation.

1587.  Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1323/2. Certeine locusts of the popes seminaries … arriuing in England, and dispersing themselues into such places [etc.].

1681.  Dryden, Sp. Fryar, III. 33. You promis’d to … bring your Regiment of Red Locusts upon me for Free-quarter.

1785.  Burke, Sp. Nabob Arcot, Wks. IV. 285. All the territorial revenues have … been covered by those locusts, the English soucars.

1826.  Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 258. Those locusts called middle-men … who live … out of the labour of the producer and the consumer.

1840.  Alison, Europe (1849–50), VIII. l. § 8. 127. An army of locusts, in the form of inspectors, customhouse-officers, comptrollers, and other functionaries, fell upon all the countries occupied by the French troops.

  4.  a. The fruit of the carob tree; a locust-bean. b. A cassia-pod, the fruit of Cassia fistula.

  [The Gr. name ἀκρίς, properly denoting the insect, is applied in the Levant to the carob-pod, from some resemblance in form; and from very early times it has been believed by many that the ‘locusts’ eaten by John the Baptist were these pods. The application to the cassia-pod is due to confusion with the carob-pod.]

1615.  G. Sandys, Trav., II. 121. Their fields, in which grow variety of excellent fruites; as … Dates, Almonds, Cassia fistula,… Locust, (flat, and of the forme of a cycle) [etc.].

1718.  Quincy, Compl. Disp., 181. Cassia, or Locust. This is a kind of Pod or Cane, which grows upon a large Tree in some parts of Brazil.

1775.  Ann. Reg., 92. Some have called the fruit [of the algarroba tree] locusts, and supposed it was the Baptist’s food in the wilderness.

  5.  = LOCUST-TREE (in its various senses).

1640.  Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 1552. The second is called Locus by our Nation resident in Virginia.

1657.  R. Ligon, Barbadoes, 74. The Locust is a tree, not unfitly to be resembled to a Tuscan Pillar. Ibid. Another Locust there is, which they call the bastard Locust.

1676.  T. Glover, Acc. Virginia, in Phil. Trans., XI. 628. There is likewise black Walnut,… Gum-tree, Locust.

1764.  Grainger, Sugar-Cane, I. 34. Let thy biting ax … the tough locust fell.

1775.  W. Emerson, in Harper’s Mag. (1883), Oct., 740/1. Large parks of well-regulated locusts.

1822.  J. Flint, Lett. Amer., 229. The black locust is strong, heavy, not much subject to warping.

1858.  Homans, Cycl. Comm., 1272/1. There are, at least, three popular varieties of the common locust…. 1. Red Locust…. 2. Green, or Yellow Locust…. 3. White Locust.

1869.  Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric., 201. Honey locust (Gleditschia triacanthos).

  b.  U.S. = locust-club (see 6).

1882.  J. D. McCabe, New York, xxiii. 383. ‘Give them the locusts, men,’ came in sharp, ringing tones from the Captain.

  6.  attrib. and Comb., as (sense 1) locust-army, -flesh, horde, host, legion, swarm; (senses 4, 5) locust fruit, timber, treenail; locust-fashion, -like advs.; locust-bean, the fruit of the carob tree; locust-bootle = locust-borer; locust-berry, the fruit of the West Indian locust, Byrsonima (Malpighia) coriacea; also, the tree itself; locust-bird, (a) a name given in S. Africa to Creatophora carunculata; also to Ciconia alba (Great Locust-bird) and Glareola nordmanni (Little Locust-bird); (b) the rose-colored starling, Pastor roseus; all these birds devour locusts; locust-borer, a longicorn beetle, Cyllene robiniæ, whose larva destroys the locust-tree; locust club, a club made of the wood of the locust-tree, used by U.S. police; locust-eater, a bird of the genus Gryllivora; locust-eating a., rendering mod.L. gryllivorus; locust flower, the flower of Robinia Pseudacacia; locust-lobster, a crustacean of the family Scyllaridæ; locust post, a post made of the wood of the locust-tree (Robinia); locust shrimp, the squilla or mantis-shrimp.

1727–46.  Thomson, Summer, 1057. Fetid fields With *locust-armies putrifying heap’d.

1847.  R. W. Church, Lett., 14 Feb., in Life & Lett. (1897), 82. The trees are very few [round Valetta]—scattered, black, shrubby carobas (or *locust-bean) are the most numerous.

1756.  P. Browne, Jamaica, 215. It seems to have a near resemblance to the *Locust-berry tree.

1776.  A. Russell, Aleppo, 70. The *locust-bird … is about the size and shape of a starling and seems of that species…. The plumage on the body is of a flesh-colour; the head, neck, wings, and tail, are black.

1867.  Layard, Birds S. Africa, 291. Glarcola Nordmanni,… Small Locust-bird of Colonists. Ibid., 314. Ciconia Alba,… The White Stork, Gould … Great Locust-Bird of Colonists.

1874.  Froude, S. Afric. Notes, 13–19 Dec., An army of locust-birds.

1884.  H. B. Tristram, Fauna & Flora Palestine, 73. The Rose-coloured Pastor is well known to the natives as the Locust Bird, from its habit of preying on that pest, whose flights it generally follows.

1851.  Evening Post, 30 May, 2/1. I saw a person making arrests, having a locust club.

1887.  Sat. Rev., 9 April, 529. Rioters … brained by the *locust clubs of the New York police.

1837.  Swainson, Nat. Hist. Birds, II. 66. The resemblance between Petroica bicolor and the genuine *locust-eaters (Gryllivora) is … remarkably strong.

1802.  Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), II. 156. The *locust-eating thrush. To this new species … Mr. Barrow has affixed the specific name of Gryllivorus.

1816.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xvi. (1818), II. 9. The locust-eating Thrush.

1890.  ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Miner’s Right (1899), 106/2. That no hated aliens … should be suffered to … spread themselves *locust-fashion over their beloved shallow ground.

1855.  Browning, Saul, ix. The *locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher.

1899.  E. J. Chapman, Drama of Two Lives, Lake Scenes, 96.

1703.  Dampier, Voy., III. 70. Ingwa’s are a Fruit like the *Locust Fruit, 4 Inches long, and one broad.

1890.  ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 257. The *locust hordes of travelling sheep.

1812.  Byron, Ch. Har., I. xv. With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul’s *locust host.

1884.  J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), II. xviii. 334. The allied troops, in *locust legions, were pouring into Leipsic.

1602.  Warner, Alb. Eng., X. lv. (1612), 243. Hir Guizards … into Scotland *Locusts-like in her pretext did swarme.

1855.  Cornwall, 25. Locust-like, they had devoured the edibles, and left us remains which were neither tender nor tempting.

1778.  Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), III. 1610/1. The locusta, or *locust-lobster.

1854.  A. Adams, etc., Man. Nat. Hist., 291. Locust-Lobsters (Scyllaridæ).

1747.  Rhode Island Col. Rec. (1860), V. 200. From a point where a *locust post was erected, [we] ran a line three miles north-east.

1870–80.  Nicholson, Man. Zool. (ed. 6), 306. The *Locust Shrimp (Squilla mantis).

1795.  Southey, Joan of Arc, V. 171. Who send their *locust swarms O’er ravaged realms.

1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxiv. 321. A locust-swarm of foragers.

1858.  Homans, Cycl. Comm., 1271/2. The strength of *locust timber, as compared with other woods.

1866.  Treas. Bot., 987/1. Considerable quantities of these *‘locust treenails’ are exported to this and other European countries.