How to Use frass in a Sentence

frass

noun
  • Look for large, black ants as well as the tell-tell sawdust-like debris, called frass.
    Caroline Picard, Good Housekeeping, 9 May 2018
  • Sawdust-like material called frass found on the ground around the tree or on the branches.
    Haadiza Ogwude, The Enquirer, 11 Aug. 2023
  • Look for the dark frass (or bug poop) on leaves, then spray water on the plant in that general vicinity.
    Debbie Arrington, sacbee.com, 30 June 2017
  • One byproduct of the process is frass — the scientific term for bug excrement.
    Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, 3 July 2019
  • As the insects grow, the Beta Hatch team removes the frass the mealworms produce, and replenishes their food.
    Kara Carlson, The Seattle Times, 22 June 2017
  • The frass contains a particular type of microbe that enables the larvae to digest the cow dung into which they was born.
    Liz Langley, National Geographic, 4 Feb. 2017
  • The frass contains a particular type of microbe that enables the larvae to digest the cow dung into which they was born.
    Liz Langley, National Geographic, 4 Feb. 2017
  • Often frass is the only way you are alerted to them, because the caterpillars are a bright leafy green color and feed on leaves high overhead.
    Ellen Nibali, baltimoresun.com, 8 Oct. 2020
  • Insect holes may also have some boring dust (frass) in or on the ground under them, whereas sapsucker holes will not.
    oregonlive, 15 May 2021
  • One example is the skipper caterpillar, which can shoot solid pellets of its waste, known as frass, over a distance up to 38 times its body length to keep predators off its tail.
    Jack Tamisiea, Scientific American, 28 Feb. 2023
  • Beta Hatch now has a grant in partnership with those scientists to find out if the bugs can still be consumed by livestock, and if the frass will still be safe for plants if they are fed an all-plastic diet.
    Kara Carlson, The Seattle Times, 22 June 2017
  • After hatching, the caterpillars bore into the apples and tunnel to the core before heading out the other side, leaving a trail filled with reddish frass (a polite word for bug poop).
    Ciscoe Morris, The Seattle Times, 10 May 2017
  • Borers are easy to distinguish from disease because the sap is mixed with frass (the debris and fecal matter left behind by boring insects).
    oregonlive, 20 Dec. 2019
  • However, some people do develop an allergy to their frass, or poop, says Diepenbrock.
    Arricca Elin Sansone, Country Living, 31 July 2023
  • Beetles in this genus often resemble caterpillar frass, a technical term for insect poop.
    Troy Farah, Discover Magazine, 22 Nov. 2019
  • Besides holes, these pests can also leave behind shed pupae skins, webbing, and frass, insect excrement that looks like large grains of sand, according to pest management brand Woodstream.
    Caroline Picard, Good Housekeeping, 13 Mar. 2019
  • Separately, producers mix the larvae’s frass, or debris from its digestion, with a microbial inoculant extracted from the black soldier flies.
    Catherine Wang, Forbes, 27 Nov. 2023
  • The insect larvae feed on organic materials and the resulting frass, or excrement, produces a soil amendment rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium.
    Karl Schneider, The Indianapolis Star, 17 Apr. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'frass.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: