Cigalles (cicadas)

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cicadas

Original French:  Cigalles

Modern French:  Cigalles


cigale

cigale
cigale

Wikipedia
Wikipedia

la cigale

Suivant les Anciens, la cigale (cicada) évoque l’automne (cf. Juvenal, IX, 68).

François Rabelais [ca. 1483–1553]
Le Tiers Livre
Michael A. Screech, editor
Paris-Genève: Librarie Droz, 1964

cigalles

Cigale: A thick, broad-headed, and mouthless flye, which ordinarily sits on trees, and sings (after her skreaking fashion) both day and night; living onely of the dew of heaven, which shee drawes into her by certaine tongue-like prickles, placed on her breast; she hath [hateth] both old, and cold countries; and therefore we neither have her, nor name for her.

Randle Cotgrave [–1634?]
A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongue
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/search/201r.html
London: Adam Islip, 1611
PBM

cigale

CIGALE, Espèce d’insecte qui vole, et qui fait un bruit aigre et importun dans les champs, durant les ardeurs de l’été. — Tout aigre qu’est ce bruit, on l’apèle pourtant chant: “Le chant de la cigale; j’ai oui chanter les cigales.”

La Cigale ayant chanté
Tout l’été — La Fontaine.

Jean-François Féraud
Dictionaire critique de la langue française
Page A446b
Marseille: Mossy, 1787-1788
Groupe d’Étude en histoire de la langue française

cigale

Gros insecte homoptère suceur de sève, commun dans le Midi et connu par sa stridulation monotone. [Big homopteran sap-sucking insect, common in the south and known for its monotonous chirp —Editor.]


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Posted 22 January 2013. Modified 16 November 2017.

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