Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Earwig |
EarwigNoun1. Any of numerous insects of the order Dermaptera having elongate bodies and slender many-jointed antennae and a pair of large pincers at the rear of the abdomen. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "earwig" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1872. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Dream Interpretation | To dream that you see an earwig or have one in your ear, denotes that you will have unpleasant news affecting your business or family relations. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
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The earwigs are an order (Dermaptera) of insects characterized by large membraneous wings folded underneath short leathery forewings (thus the literal name of the order - "skin wings"). The abdomen extends well beyond the wings, and frequently, though not always, ends in a pair of forceps-like cerci. With about 1,800 recorded species in 10 families, the order is relatively small among the Insecta, but the earwigs themselves are quite common throughout the world, often finding their way into houses, where they are usually first noticed scurrying across the floor.
Most earwigs are elongate and low to the ground, and a dark brown in color. Lengths are mostly in the 10-14 mm range, with a species of St Helena reaching 80 mm. The cerci range from nonexistent, to long arcs up to 1/3 as long as the rest of the body. Mouthparts are adapted for chewing. The hindwings are folded in a complicated fashion so that they fit under the forewings; but despite all the trouble, earwigs rarely fly.
The earwig abdomen is flexible and muscular, and capable of both maneuvering and opening/closing the forceps. The forceps seem to be used for a variety of purposes. Their role in self-defense is familiar to every child whose first grab at a passign earwig resulted in a pinch - more surprising than painful, the forceps not being particularly strong. In some species, the forceps have also been observed in use for holding prey, to unfold the wings, and in copulation.
The name "earwig" is said to originate from an old belief that earwigs crawl into people's ears and lay eggs in the brain. Earwigs do tend to prefer being in hidden places, and it's certainly possible that once upon a time one earwig crawled into the ear of a sleeping person, but that would be a very rare occurrence. Another explanation is that it is an alteration of "ear-wing", after the shape of the hind wings when unfolded.
The Hemimeridae are unusual in that they live in the fur of giant rats and feed on the rats' dead skin and fungi.
Fossil earwigs are known from the Jurassic on, about 70 specimens having been found as of 2003.
Species:
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Earwig."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Flatterer | Toady, toadeater; sycophant, courtier, Sir Pertinax MacSycophant; flaneur, proneur; puffer, touter, claqueur; clawback, earwig, doer of dirty work; parasite, hanger-on; (servility). |
Flattery | Verb: flatter, praise to the skies, puff; wheedle, cajole, glaver, coax; fawn upon, faun upon; humor, gloze, soothe, pet, coquet, slaver, butter; jolly; bespatter, beslubber, beplaster, beslaver; lay it on thick, overpraise; earwig, cog, collogue; truckle to, pander to, pandar to, suck up to, kiss the ass of, pay court to; court; creep into the good graces of, curry favor with, hang on the sleeve of; fool to the top of one;s bent; lick the dust. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Earwig |
| English words defined with "earwig": common European earwig ♦ Dermopteran ♦ Ear-piercer, Earwigged, Earwigging, Euplexoptera. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Earwig" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 50.00% of the time. "Earwig" is used about 12 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 50% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 33.33% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 16.67% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 12 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "earwig": common European earwig. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
earwig | 247 |
earwig picture | 38 |
earwig control | 27 |
earwig insect | 18 |
earwig bug | 10 |
earwig trap | 7 |
earwig photo | 4 |
bite earwig | 4 |
earwig european | 3 |
earwig record | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "earwig"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | حاول التأثير على شخص, إبو مقص نوع حشرة, أزعج بكثرة حديثه عن نفسه. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | стоножка (centipede, millepede, millipede), щипалка. (various references) | |
Czech | škvor. (various references) | |
Danish | almindelig oerentvist (common earwig, European earwig). (various references) | |
Dutch | oorwurm (common earwig, European earwig), oorworm (common earwig, European earwig). (various references) | |
Finnish | isopihtihäntä (common earwig, European earwig). (various references) | |
French | perce-oreille (common earwig, European earwig). (various references) | |
German | ohrwurm (catchy record, common earwig, European earwig). (various references) | |
Greek | ψαλίδα (alligator, pruning scissors, striping unit, tendril, yarn-changing unit). (various references) | |
Hebrew | יתוש טיטוס, צבתן. (various references) | |
Hungarian | százlábú fajta, fülbemászó (catching, catchy, melodious). (various references) | |
Italian | dermattero. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 挟み虫 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | はさみむし. (various references) | |
Korean | 집게벌 . (various references) | |
Manx | gollage (dung fork; earwig, fork, garden fork, hay fork, pitchfork). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | earwigay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | cerume (cerumen, wax). (various references) | |
Romanian | urechelniţã (ear-wig, houseleek). (various references) | |
Russian | уховертка. (various references) | |
Scottish | gaillseach (a mouth overcharged so that the cheeks swell out, an earwig), fiolan , fiolar (an earwig). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | uholaža. (various references) | |
Spanish | tijereta (scissors, scissors kick, tendril). (various references) | |
Swedish | tvestjärt. (various references) | |
Turkish | kulağakaçan. (various references) | |
Ukranian | щипавка (pincher), шептун, пліткар (blabber, bobber, buzzer, cackler, gossiper, novelist, peddler, pedlar, pimp, quidnunc, retailer, scandalmonger, tattler, tattletale, telltale, tittle tattle). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Forficula auricularia. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "earwig": earwigged, earwigging, earwigs. (additional references) | |
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"Earwig" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Derwig, earway, Eatwot, Eirig, erwing, heilwig, Herwig, Mearig, Orwig. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-g-i-r-w" | |
-1 letter: wager. | |
-2 letters: ager, gear, grew, rage, ragi, wage, wair, ware, wear, weir, wire. | |
-3 letters: age, air, are, awe, ear, era, erg, gae, gar, gie, ire, rag, raw, reg, rei, ria, rig, wae, wag, war, wig. | |
-4 letters: ae, ag, ai, ar, aw, er, re, we. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-g-i-r-w" | |
+1 letter: earwigs, gawkier, wearing. | |
+2 letters: bewaring, giftware, lawgiver, resawing, rewaking, rewaxing, swearing, twangier, wafering, wagering, watering, wavering, wearying, wigmaker, wreaking. | |
+3 letters: answering, bewraying, clearwing, earwigged, giftwares, lawgivers, lawyering, nightwear, overawing, reavowing, reawaking, redrawing, rewarding, rewarming, rewashing, reweaving, waggeries, wandering, waterings, wearingly, wigmakers, wreathing. | |
+4 letters: becrawling, bedwarfing, beswarming, bewearying, bewrapping, bilgewater, clearwings, dewatering, drawbridge, earwigging, enwrapping, lawyerings, outwearing, prewarming, prewarning, prewashing, preweaning, rewakening, rewrapping, stewarding, swaggering, unswearing, unwavering, wanderings, watertight, waveringly, weathering, wharfinger, wingspread. | |
+5 letters: becowarding, bilgewaters, browbeating, carriageway, drawbridges, enwreathing, farewelling, firewalling, forewarning, forswearing, giftwrapped, graniteware, handwringer, lawbreaking, lowercasing, nightwalker, outswearing, outwearying, overdrawing, overwarming, overwearing, paperweight, prewrapping, racewalking, reawakening, rewardingly, springwater, unrewarding, unwreathing, waitressing, warehousing, waterskiing, weatherings, wharfingers, wingspreads, wiredrawing, wiretapping. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)45 61 72 77 69 67 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references). .- .-. .--. .. --. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000101 01100001 01110010 01110111 01101001 01100111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)E a r w i g |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0045 0061 0072 0077 0069 0067 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)396784897573 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Translations: Ancient 10. Derivations 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
