Other forms: crickets
A cricket is the jumping insect that chirps loudly on summer nights. Crickets chirping, a cricket in the grass, the cricket's song.
The sound is made by rubbing one wing against the other, not by the legs, and only the males do it. The rate rises with temperature reliably enough to estimate the air temperature from it. The name imitates the sound.
1nouninsectA jumping insect that chirps by rubbing its wings.
“On warm summer nights, the crickets sang in the long grass outside our tent.”
cricket is an insect.
Also accepted in games: grasshopper
Old French criquet imitates the sound, from criquer, to creak or crackle.
Proto-West Germanic
*krakōn
Middle Dutch
kricken — to creak; crack
Old French
criket
Middle English
creket
English, today
cricket
Built from
From Middle English creket, crykett, crykette, from Old French criket (with diminutive -et) from criquer (“to make a cracking sound; creak”), from Middle Dutch kricken (“to creak; crack”), from Proto-West Germanic krakōn, related to Middle English creken, criken (“to creak”), all ultimately of imitative of the sound origin. Compare Dutch kriek (“cricket”), Middle Dutch krikel, criekel, crekel (“cricket”) (with diminituve -el), Middle Low German krikel, krekel (“cricket”), German Kreckel (“cricket”). More at creak.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA