Word of the Day

: November 4, 2017

stridulate

verb STRIJ-uh-layt

What It Means

: to make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures — used especially of male insects (such as crickets or grasshoppers)

stridulate in Context

"When attacked from the side, the crickets stridulated and tried to bite their attacker." — Matt Walker, BBC News, 28 July 2009

"Every day throughout the year begins and ends with … insects rattling and stridulating, and birds singing their hearts out." — Alex Shoumatoff, Yale Environment 360, 18 May 2017

Did You Know?

Stridulate is one member of a word family that has its ancestry in the Latin word stridulus, meaning "shrill." The word alludes to the sharp, high-pitched sound that is produced by a number of insects—particularly crickets and grasshoppers but also certain beetles—as well as other animals, usually as a mating call or a signal of territorial behavior. Stridulus comes from stridere, which is the direct source of our noun stridor, a word found in medical dictionaries. Stridor means "a harsh, shrill, or creaking noise" and also "a harsh vibrating sound heard during respiration in cases of obstruction of the air passages."