locust

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A fruit or pod of a carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua).

   Among other articles, they brought with them a great quantity of locusts, which are a kind of pulse, sweet and pleasant to the palate, and in shape resembling French beans, but longer.

2. 2
   noun

   A dose of laudanum.

   I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight.

3. 3
   verb

   To come in a swarm.

   This Philip and the black-faced swarms of Spain, The hardest, cruellest people in the world, Come locusting upon us, eat us up, Confiscate lands, goods, money […].

4. 4
   noun

   migratory grasshoppers of warm regions having short antennae

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lek-der.? Latin locusta Anglo-Norman locustebor. Middle English locuste English locust Inherited from Middle English locuste, locust, from Anglo-Norman locuste, Middle French locuste, and their source, Latin locustam (“locust, crustacean, lobster”, accusative of locusta). Doublet of langouste. Noun sense 3 (“kind of tree”), originally referring to the carob (compare locust bean), is based on the resemblance of the trees' beanlike seed pods to the insect and is likely a semantic loan from Ancient Greek ἀκρίς (akrís). Noun sense 5 (“mainlander”) is a semantic...

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