Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A genus of coleopterous insects, the type of the family Dermestidæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A genus of coleopterous insects, the larvæ of which feed animal substances. They are very destructive to dries meats, skins, woolens, and furs. The most common species is
Dermestes lardarius , known as thebacon beetle .
Etymologies
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Examples
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No creature known to man possesses more intense vitality than the _dermestes_ beetle which propagates in the skull of a mummy.
The Orchard of Tears Sax Rohmer 1921
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Now in the very same sense, and no other, than that in which the writer himself by implication compares himself as a man to the _dermestes typographicus_, or the _fucus scorpioides_, do I compare the principle of Life to magnetism, electricity, and constructive affinity, — or rather to that power to which the two former are the thesis and antithesis, the latter the synthesis.
Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803
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