Aphid

//ˈeɪ.fɪd// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sap-sucking insect pest of the superfamily Aphidoidea; an aphidian.
  2. 2
    any of various small plant-sucking insects wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aphisinsectplant louse

Example

More examples

"The ladybird, being known for its usefulness in the fight against the black aphid, has several names in Kabyle, including "the cow of orphans"."

Etymology

From New Latin aphis (plural aphides), coined by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. His inspiration for the name remains unclear; OED suggests it might stem from a misreading of Ancient Greek κορις (koris, “bug”) (see diagram), in which case the nominative -ις (-is) suffix was reanalyzed as -ις, -ιδος (-is, -idos); while AHD suggests a connection to Ancient Greek ἀφειδής (apheidḗs, “unsparing, lavishly borrowed”) in reference to the insects' voracity or rapid rate of production, from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + φείδομαι (pheídomai, “to spare, be thrifty, be merciful”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). Doublet of aphis.

Related phrases

English grain aphidRussian wheat aphidalmond aphidaphid lionaphid midgeaphid wolfapple aphidapple root aphidapple-grass aphidartichoke root aphidasparagus aphidbalsam twig aphid

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.