weevil
n. countablen. a small insect that looks like a beetle and has a long nose. It is famous for eating seeds and grains, which can ruin crops.
n. a small beetle of the family Curculionidae, characterised by a long, curved snout. Often considered a significant agricultural pest due to its habit of boring into seeds and grains.
The farmer found a weevil in the wheat bin.
A single weevil can destroy an entire seed by boring into it and laying its eggs inside the kernel.
The introduction of the cotton weevil into the southern United States during the nineteenth century had a devastating impact on the local economy, forcing a shift toward diversified agricultural practices.
From Middle English wevel, from Old English wifel (“beetle”), from Proto-West Germanic wibil, from Proto-Germanic wibilaz, from Proto-Indo-European webʰel-, from (h₁)webʰ- (“to wave, to weave”), said to be from the woven appearance of a weevil’s larval case, + -el-, -l̥- (diminutive or attributive suffix); see also wave and weave. Compare Old Saxon *wivil (“beetle”); Middle Low German wevel; Old High German wibil, wipil (modern German Wiebel (“beetle; chafer”)); Lithuanian vãbalas (“beetle; weevil”); Old Norse vifill, as in tordyfill (“dung beetle, scarab”) (whence Dutch tortwevel; Icelandic tordýfill, Norwegian tordivel, Old English tordwifel, Swedish tordyvel); dialectal Russian ве́блица (véblica, “intestinal worm”).