WEEVIL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does weevil mean? 

• WEEVIL (noun)
  The noun WEEVIL has 1 sense:

1. any of several families of mostly small beetles that feed on plants and plant products; especially snout beetles and seed beetles

  Familiarity information: WEEVIL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEEVIL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several families of mostly small beetles that feed on plants and plant products; especially snout beetles and seed beetles

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("weevil" is a kind of...):

beetle (insect having biting mouthparts and front wings modified to form horny covers overlying the membranous rear wings)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "weevil"):

snout beetle (small weevil having a prolonged snout; destructive to e.g. grains and nuts)

Anthonomus grandis; boll weevil (greyish weevil that lays its eggs in cotton bolls destroying the cotton)

darkling beetle; darkling groung beetle; tenebrionid (sluggish hard-bodied black terrestrial weevil whose larvae feed on e.g. decaying plant material or grain)

seed beetle; seed weevil (a small beetle that infests the seeds of legumes)

black weevil; rice weevil; Sitophylus oryzae (brown weevil that infests stored grain especially rice)

 Context examples 

If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch them still.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)