of, relating to, or belonging to the Hemiptera, a large order of insects having sucking or piercing mouthparts specialized as a beak (rostrum). The group is divided into the suborders Homoptera (aphids, cicadas, etc) and Heteroptera (water bugs, bedbugs, etc)
hemipterous in American English
(hɪˈmɪptərəs)
adjective
1.
belonging or pertaining to the Hemiptera, an order of insects having forewings that are thickened and leathery at the base and membranous at the apex, comprising the true bugs
2.
belonging or pertaining to the order Hemiptera, in some classifications comprising the heteropterous and homopterous insects
Word origin
[1810–20; hemipter(a) + -ous]This word is first recorded in the period 1810–20. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: dynamic, knockout, realism, technique, voodoo-ous is a suffix forming adjectives that have the general sense “possessing, full of”a given quality (covetous; glorious; nervous; wondrous); -ous and its variant -ious have often been used to Anglicize Latin adjectives with terminations that cannotbe directly adapted into English (atrocious; contiguous; garrulous; obvious; stupendous). As an adjective-forming suffix of neutral value, it regularly Anglicizes Greekand Latin adjectives derived without suffix from nouns and verbs; many such formationsare productive combining forms in English, sometimes with a corresponding nominalcombining form that has no suffix (as -fer and -ferous; -phore and -phorous; -pter and -pterous; -vore and -vorous)