The Collaborative International Dictionary
Insect \In"sect\ ([i^]n"s[e^]kt), n. [F. insecte, L. insectum, fr. insectus, p. p. of insecare to cut in. See Section. The name was originally given to certain small animals, whose bodies appear cut in, or almost divided. Cf. Entomology.]
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(Zo["o]l.) One of the Insecta; esp., one of the Hexapoda. See Insecta.
Note: The hexapod insects pass through three stages during their growth, viz., the larva, pupa, and imago or adult, but in some of the orders the larva differs little from the imago, except in lacking wings, and the active pupa is very much like the larva, except in having rudiments of wings. In the higher orders, the larva is usually a grub, maggot, or caterpillar, totally unlike the adult, while the pupa is very different from both larva and imago and is inactive, taking no food.
(Zo["o]l.) Any air-breathing arthropod, as a spider or scorpion.
(Zo["o]l.) Any small crustacean. In a wider sense, the word is often loosely applied to various small invertebrates.
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Fig.: Any small, trivial, or contemptible person or thing.
--Thomson.Insect powder,a powder used for the extermination of insects; esp., the powdered flowers of certain species of Pyrethrum, a genus now merged in Chrysanthemum. Called also Persian powder.
WordNet
n. a chemical used to kill insects [syn: insecticide]
Usage examples of "insect powder".
Nor reducing powder, nor anti-lion powder, nor baking powder, not insect powder, nor milk powder.
Only once, on Milchkannengasse, between Deutschendorff's sporting goods store and a branch of the Valtinat dairy chain, outside a window displaying stuffed squirrels, martens, and owls, displaying mountain cocks and a stuffed eagle with out spread wings and a lamb in its claws, outside a window with shelves in the form of a grandstand that stopped just before the plate-glass pane, in the presence of rat traps, fox traps, packages of insect powder, little bags of moth flakes, in the presence of gnat bane, roaches' nemesis, and rough-on-rats, in the presence of exterminator's equipment, bird food, dog biscuit, empty fish bowls, tins full of dehydrated flies and waterbugs, in the presence of frogs, salamanders, and snakes in jars and alcohol, of incredible butterflies under glass, of beetles with antlers, hairy spiders, and the usual sea horses, in the presence of the human skeleton -- to the right beside the shelf -- in the presence of the .
I, in turn, have an idea that, long before this touchin' case is clarified, you'll wish the irascible captain with the insect powder had never found those fingerprints.
And next time you reach for the salt, make sure there isn't an insect powder label on it.