Wiktionary
a. insect-like. n. (context science fiction ufology English) An insect-like creature.
Wikipedia
The term insectoid denotes any creature or object that shares a similar body or traits with common earth insects and arachnids. The term is a combination of "insect" and "-oid" (a suffix denoting similarity).
In technology, insectoid robots such as hexapods have been designed for scientific or military uses. Research continues to miniaturize these robots to be used as flying spies or scouts. Insectoid features may also increase the effectiveness of robots in traversing various terrains.
Insect-like creatures have been a part of the tradition of science fiction and fantasy. In the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, Georges Méliès portrayed the Selenites of the moon as insectoid. Olaf Stapledon incorporates insectiods in his 1937 Star Maker novel. In the pulp fiction novels, insectoid creatures were frequently used as the antagonists threatening the damsel in distress. Later depictions of the hostile insect aliens include the antagonists in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers novel and the "buggers" in Orson Scott Card's Ender novels.
The hive queen has been a theme of novels including C. J. Cherryh's Serpent's Reach and the Alien film franchise. Sexuality has been addressed in Philip Jose Farmer's "The Lovers" Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis novels and China Miéville's Perdido Street Station
Usage examples of "insectoid".
The two Marines filtered the audio pickup to mute the usual insectoid and avian sounds and listened for anything that sounded like voices.
Arachnia stood in the doorway for a moment before entering the room, moving with the grace and silence Alaire had come to associate with the insectoid race.
Item: The insectoid population of Procyon II, suffering from the pangs of overpopulation, had found some pretext to go to war with the humanoids of Procyon III.
Not only were some ninety percent of the insectoids destroyed, but anti-human pogroms broke out spontaneously on seven of the other nine insectoid worlds in the Commonwealth.
By the time he reached the insectoid world of Procyon II he had decided upon different tactics.
The insectoid ship, its angular arms bristling with weaponry, danced infuriatingly in and out of the crosshairs inside his holographic array.
An insectoid vaguely like a flea scooted along the rim and stopped to insert its proboscis into the brimming liquid.
An insectoid whose head was all compound eye and razor mandible was eyeing him hungrily.
While not as flexible as a human face, that of the AAnn was capable of considerably more expression than, say, the insectoid thranx.
Janus Gate, although part of her still desperately wanted to watch to make sure no other insectoid robots detached themselves from those odd metallic bodies.
Shechenag said while others detached various insectoid robots from their bodies and sent them scuttling out of sight, perhaps to communicate their new plan of action to the rest of their crew.
His head was round and yellow and hairless, dominated by snapping black eyes, which Don noticed now were actually a network of insectoid sensors.
Cynthara and so twice nephews of Belthar himselfhad showered neutron bombs from space to soften the urban and industrial centers of an insectoid civilization.
They demonstrated to reporters how they made even the most elaborate insectoid patterns.
It steadied itself for a moment on all fours before rising to stand in an insectoid parody of a man.