Scalicide
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A substance that kills scale insects. countable, uncountable
"Mr. Hess. The only Japanese cherry trees that come under my jurisdiction are those that are planted in the Botanic Garden, and they do have a little scale, some of them. We sprayed them last fall with arsenic, for the biting or eating insects, and we sprayed them later on with scalicide for the scale, and we got them pretty clean, but I notice there is some little scale on them. There is not a great deal, however. Mr. Welsh. Did you spray them with any oil solution this spring, in the dormant season? Mr. Hess. We sprayed them with scalicide; yes, sir. The basis of scalicide is kerosene, I think."
Example
More examples"Mr. Hess. The only Japanese cherry trees that come under my jurisdiction are those that are planted in the Botanic Garden, and they do have a little scale, some of them. We sprayed them last fall with arsenic, for the biting or eating insects, and we sprayed them later on with scalicide for the scale, and we got them pretty clean, but I notice there is some little scale on them. There is not a great deal, however. Mr. Welsh. Did you spray them with any oil solution this spring, in the dormant season? Mr. Hess. We sprayed them with scalicide; yes, sir. The basis of scalicide is kerosene, I think."
Etymology
From scale + -icide.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.