Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cicada.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A cicada.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A cicada. See cicada.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A cicada.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings; male has drum-like organs for producing a high-pitched drone

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Italian, from Latin cicāda.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian cicala and Occitan cicala.

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Examples

  • Everything that lived or grew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle.

    Little Dorrit 2007

  • Then the LUCCIOLA, the fire-fly of Tuscany, was seen to flash its sudden sparks among the foliage, while the cicala, with its shrill note, became more clamorous than even during the noon-day heat, loving best the hour when the English beetle, with less offensive sound, winds

    The Mysteries of Udolpho 2004

  • Already a blast of heat was rising over the land and the rasping cries of the cicala fretted their talk; and Caterina bade him follow her down into the _voto_ -- the vast, cool, underground chambers which, for the patricians of Cyprus, made life possible during this heated term, between the freshness of the morning and the comfort of the evening shadows.

    The Royal Pawn of Venice A Romance of Cyprus Lawrence Turnbull

  • And it resounded with the notes of the male Kokila and of the shrill cicala.

    The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose Adi Parva Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli

  • It resembles the flitting of some gipsy, or rather it reminds me of an engraving in a book of fables I owned in my childhood: the whole thing is exactly like the slender wardrobe and the long guitar which the cicala who had sung all the summer, carried upon her back when she knocked at the door of her neighbor the ant.

    The French Immortals Series — Complete Various

  • And it resounded with the notes of the male Kokila and of the shrill cicala.

    The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 Books 1, 2 and 3 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli

  • The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.

    The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) 1907

  • The complaint of the cicala, torn away by shepherds from its harmless green life of song and dew among the leaves, and the poem bidding the blackbird leave the dangerous oak, where, with its breast against a spray, it pours out its clear music, [9] are probably of

    Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology Anonymous 1902

  • The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.

    The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Kenyon, Frederic G 1898

  • You are to hear a voice that puts to silence all others, as the trumpet the flute, as the cicala the bee, as the choir the tuning-fork.

    Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03 of Samosata Lucian 1895

Comments

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  • "In a sea-side house to the farther south,

    Where the baked cicalas die of drouth,

    And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands,

    By the many hundred years red-rusted,

    Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'er-crusted,

    My sentinel to guard the sands

    To the water's edge. ..."

    -from De Gustibus--

    January 14, 2010

  • "Poetry lovers will note that poets prefer the Italian word cicala, pronounced si-KAH-la, to the Latin cicada." Wm. Safire, Coming to Terms

    January 19, 2010

  • FFS Misfire, that's pathetic. Most poets prefer getting foreign pronunciations right.

    January 19, 2010

  • I believe Safire's suggested pronunciation is the Americanized pronunciation of cicala.

    January 19, 2010