locusts

Noun

locust (plural locusts)

1. Any of the grasshoppers, often polyphenic and usually swarming, in the family Acrididae that are very destructive to crops and other vegetation, especially migratory locusts (Locusta migratoria).
2. (historical) A fruit or pod of a carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua).
   • Among other articles, they brought with them a great quantity of locusts, which are a kind of pulse, sweet and pleasant to the palate, and in shape resembling French beans, but longer.1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 9, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I
3. Any of various often leguminous trees and shrubs, especially of the genera Robinia and Gleditsia; locust tree.
4. A cicada.
5. (Hong-Kong, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slur) A mainlander.
6. (UK, obsolete, slang) A dose of laudanum.
   • I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861

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