locusta

locusta (plural locustae)

1. (botany) The spikelet or flower cluster of grasses[1]

• “locusta”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Tuscola, costula, couatls, talcous

Borrowed from Latin locusta, of uncertain origin. Doublet of the inherited aragosta.

locusta f (plural locuste)

1. locust

• lucusta, *lacusta

The origin is uncertain, length of the first vowel varies. According to De Vaan, the only word similar in form and meaning is lacerta (“lizard; mackerel”) and “they could be cognate words in the language from which Latin borrowed these forms”. Pokorny connects lō̆custa and lacerta with Ancient Greek λάξ (láx) λάγδην (lágdēn, “with the foot”, adverb), λάκτις (láktis, “pestle”), λικερτίζειν (likertízein, “to jump, to dance”) and Old Norse leggr (“lower leg, bone”), Lombardic lagi (“thigh”), deriving all from Proto-Indo-European *lek- (“joint, member; to bend, to wind”), explaining lō̆custa as “equipped with joints”. This is considered unconvincing by De Vaan.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /loːˈkus.ta/, [ɫ̪oːˈkʊs̠t̪ä] or IPA^(key): /loˈkus.ta/, [ɫ̪ɔˈkʊs̠t̪ä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /loˈkus.ta/, [loˈkust̪ä]
• Note: in Late Latin hexameter poetry, the vowel normally scans short, in contrast to the personal name where it scans long.

lō̆custa f (genitive lō̆custae); first declension

1. a grasshopper or locust
   • 2015, Tuomo Pekkanen, Ingentes greges locustarum in Russia meridionali. , Nuntii Latini 7.8.2015:

     Ingentēs gregēs lō̆custārum regiōnem Stavropolis in Russiā merīdiōnālī invāsērunt.

     A giant swarm of locusts has invaded the Stavropolsky district in southern Russia.

2. a crustacean, (prob) a kind of lobster

   lō̆custa marīna/maris ― a crustacean (literally, “a sea grasshopper”)

First-declension noun.

• prius pariet lō̆custa Lūcam bovem
• Lō̆custa, Lū̆custa

• Vulgar Latin: *lacusta (see there for further descendants)

Borrowings

• → Italian: locusta
• → Old French: locuste
  • French: locuste
  • → Middle English: locuste, locust, locusta
    • English: locust
• → Portuguese: locusta
• → Romanian: locustă
• →? Old English: loppestre, lopustre, lopystre
  • Middle English: loppestere
    • English: lobster
    • Scots: lapster, labster
    • Yola: labstaar

• “locusta” on page 1145 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) chapter 673, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 673
• Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “locusta”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots‎ (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, page 365ab
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “locusta”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 347-348

• “locusta”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “locusta”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• locusta in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• locusta in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “locusta”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “locusta”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

locusta

1. Alternative form of locuste