Word.ws English Dictionary

periodical cicada

periodical cicada noun: any of certain species of cicadas, especially in genus Magicicada, which are known for their 17- and 13-year life-cycles, during most of which they develop underground, emerging in large numbers for a short time as large and audible adults, all those emerging in a year constituting a brood.

Noun

periodical cicada (plural periodical cicadas)

  1. Any of certain species of cicadas, especially in genus Magicicada, which are known for their 17- and 13-year life-cycles, during most of which they develop underground, emerging in large numbers for a short time as large and audible adults, all those emerging in a year constituting a brood.
    • An emergence is when a throng of periodical cicadas rises from the ground as soon as the soil reaches about 64 degrees Fahrenheit. The groups of magicicadas, known as broods, surface only once every 13 or 17 years depending on the species.2013 May 3, Megan Buerger, “Bugged by Cicada Swarm? Don't Be”, in Wall Street Journal

Forms of periodical cicada

pluralperiodical cicadas

Questions about periodical cicada

What does periodical cicada mean?
Periodical cicada means any of certain species of cicadas, especially in genus Magicicada, which are known for their 17- and 13-year life-cycles, during most of which they develop underground, emerging in large numbers for a short time as large and audible adults, all those emerging in a year constituting a brood.
What part of speech is periodical cicada?
Periodical cicada is a noun.
What is the plural of periodical cicada?
The plural of periodical cicada is periodical cicadas.

Words near periodical cicada in the dictionary

  1. periodic structure
  2. periodic structures
  3. periodic table
  4. periodic tables
  5. periodical
  6. periodical cicada
  7. periodical cicadas
  8. periodical comet
  9. periodical comets
  10. periodicalist
  11. periodicalists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: periodical cicada (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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