| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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4. Science Terms: Distinctions, Restrictions, and Confusions
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| § 11. bug / insect |
| The word bug is often used to refer to any insect and sometimes even to spiders, which are not insects. Originally a term that meant a hobgoblin or scarecrow, bug had, by the early 1600s, metamorphosed into a term used to describe any of various insects or similar organisms, such as the centipede. But in strict biological usage, a bug (or true bug) is an insect having mouthparts that are adapted for piercing and sucking and are contained in a beak-shaped structure called a rostrum. Thus, an aphid, a leaf bug, and a stink bug are classified as bugs. All insects, including bugs, have six legs and a body divided into three sections—head, thorax, and abdomen. In fact, insect derives from Latin insectum, which is itself a translation of Greek entomon, “segmented, cut up,” the source of our word entomology, “the study of insects.” Spiders, on the other hand, belong to a group called arachnids and are characterized by having eight legs and two body sections—a cephalothorax consisting of a combined head and thorax and an abdomen. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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