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chinch bug

American

noun

a small lygaeid bug, Blissus leucopterus, that feeds on corn, wheat, and other grains.

chinch bug British

noun

a black-and-white tropical American heteropterous insect, Blissus leucopterus, that is very destructive to grasses and cereals in the US: family Lygaeidae
a related and similar European insect, Ischnodemus sabuleti

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of chinch bug

An Americanism dating back to 1775–85

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Relatively impervious to either drought, damp or chinch bug, amenable to almost any type of soil, the bean's chief enemies are rabbits, grasshoppers, blister beetles.

From Time Magazine Archive

A glass of water or a chinch bug or a copper coin is composed of molecules.

From Time Magazine Archive

“They don’t know what a chinch bug or a Hessian fly is up there.”

From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck

I do not remember having seen a rat or a weasel on the frontier at that time, and many of the natives had never seen a potato bug or chinch bug or cockroach.

From Land of the Burnt Thigh by Voorhies, Stephen J.

These birds feed on the army worms and cutworms that do so much injury to the young shoots; they also destroy the chinch bug and the grasshopper, both of which feed on cultivated plants.

From Agriculture for Beginners Revised Edition by Burkett, Charles William

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023