Entomological Etymology 3: bugs
For episode 3, let’s zoom out and get the big picture on our tiny friends: today we’re covering words for bugs, as a whole!
The word “bug” has been used for itsy-bitsy critters since at least 1620. But the word’s older than that -- but it used to mean something different. Before then, “bug” actually meant “devil”, or something spooky. This older version of the word survives in Modern English at least for dungeons and dragons fans -- in “bugbear”, a type of goblin. It also gives us “bogey”, and through some sound shifts, probably the name “Puck”, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Bug” traces back to Middle English “bugge”, which goes back as far as Proto-Indo-European “bu-” meaning, “to swell”, a root that also gives us the word big. That’s a bit ironic if you ask me. Modern “bug” probably gained its modern meaning by conflation with Middle English “budde”, which gave us beetle.
What is appropriate, is that the first insect ever called a “bug” was the bedbug, which is of course a type of vampire. To this day, entomologists refer to the bedbug and its relatives as the “true bugs”. These creatures share the trait of having a sharp proboscis that they use to puncture things and suck fluid (sometimes blood, sometimes plant sap). Of course, true bugs aren’t the only creatures that realized they could get a nutritious meal from blood - the mosquitos figures that out completely independently (they’re flies, not true bugs). Some other true bugs, that is members of Order Hemiptera (“half wing”) are aphids, stink bugs, spotted lanternflies. And yes, I know, most people don’t care about what entomologists say, and just call any creepy-crawly a bug. You do you.
So what about “insect”? While “bug” is Germanic, “insect” is Latinate, derived from “in-”, meaning the same as in English, “-sect”, like section, meaning “cut”. “Insect” is literally “cut-in”, meaning an animal whose body is made up of segments with clear divisions. But if you trace further back, you find that “insect” is a Latin translation of a Greek word meaning the same thing. That Greek word is “entomon”: “en-” meaning “in”, and “-tom” meaning “cut”. Contrast with atom, another Greek word meaning “un” - “cuttable”! Entomon gives us Entomology, the study of insects. Isn’t it neat that insect and entomology are basically the same thing in Latin vs. Greek?
From an entomological perspective, “insect” refers to a diverse lineage of six-legged land-dwelling arthropods. In recent years, another unique and possibly defining feature of insects was discovered: insects use a unique type of protein in their sense of smell - a class of tetrameric (“four-component”) proteins that form chemical-sensitive ion channels - called odorant receptors.
But most of the time we look at creatures from the outside. Insects have their skeletons on the outside - “exoskeletons”, for that segmented body armor that makes up the notched body. Just like our endoskeletons, “inside” “skeletons,” insect exoskeletons provide rigid structure to the body and create places for muscles to attach and pull against.
So OK, some bugs drive me crazy, those little biting demons. But next time you squash a bloodsucker, you might hear a crunch -- and be thankful that their little segmented exoskeletons are no match for you, you giant monster!
Wiktionary Entry for “Bug”. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bug#Etymology
Harper, Douglas. “Bug” entry, Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bug
Liberman, Anatoly (2015). Bugs: a postscript. https://blog.oup.com/2015/06/bug-etymology-word-origin/
Fagerland, Richard (2008). The creepy origin of the word bug. SF Gate. https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/the-creepy-origin-of-the-word-bug-3294164.php
Harper, Douglas. “Insect” entry, Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=insect
Harper, Douglas. “Entomology” entry, Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/entomology
Brand et al. (2018). The origin of the odorant receptor gene family in insects. eLife. https://elifesciences.org/articles/38340
Del Mármol et al. (2021). The structural basis of odorant recognition in insect olfactory receptors. Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03794-8
