stridulation
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun The act, process, or function of stridulating; the power of so doing, or the thin, harsh, creaking noise thus produced; a shrilling.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- noun The act of making shrill sounds or musical notes by rubbing together certain hard parts, as is done by the males of many insects, especially by Orthoptera, such as crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts.
- noun The noise itself.
Examples
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After all, where else would I be able to brag about the happiness I found in finally hearing what the defensive stridulation of a dung beetle sounds like?
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His voice becomes a mere stridulation for the stating of formula; he seems deaf to all but properly enunciated problems.
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The shrill, small voice of the sunbird is almost indistinguishable from the stridulation of one of the leaf insects, which makes its amorous noises in the evening as well as during the sunny hours.
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No account that I have seen of the stridulation of male insects shows that it is a challenge.
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During the monsoon the silence of the night is broken only by the sound of falling raindrops, or the croaking of the frogs, the stridulation of crickets innumerable, and the owlet's feeble call.
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Others have heard a sewing machine, a spinning wheel, or a fisherman’s winding line in its insect stridulation, but for me the grasshopper warbler’s song is the silvery purring of the earth itself, its dark warmth expressed as a reeling drone at the end of the day.
Note
The word 'stridulation' comes from a Latin word meaning 'creak; shriek; grate'.
