Insectual

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, relating to, or characteristic of an insect.

    "Cochineal is made from an insect. Every pound weight of this valuable drug is said to contain 70,000 insects boiled to death; so that the annual sacrifice of insectual life to procure our scarlet and crimson dyes amounts to about 49,000,000 of these minute members of the vast creation."

Example

More examples

"Cochineal is made from an insect. Every pound weight of this valuable drug is said to contain 70,000 insects boiled to death; so that the annual sacrifice of insectual life to procure our scarlet and crimson dyes amounts to about 49,000,000 of these minute members of the vast creation."

Etymology

From insect + -ual.

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