Word.ws English Dictionary

pinacate beetle

pinacate beetle noun: a darkling beetle of the genus Eleodes, endemic to the Sonoran Desert and adjacent regions, and known for its defensive tactic of standing on its head to squirt a noxious spray.

Noun

pinacate beetle (plural pinacate beetles)

  1. A darkling beetle of the genus Eleodes, endemic to the Sonoran Desert and adjacent regions, and known for its defensive tactic of standing on its head to squirt a noxious spray.

Synonyms of pinacate beetle

Forms of pinacate beetle

pluralpinacate beetles

Origin of pinacate beetle

From Mexican Spanish pinacate, from Classical Nahuatl pinacatl (“black beetle”).

Questions about pinacate beetle

What does pinacate beetle mean?
Pinacate beetle means a darkling beetle of the genus Eleodes, endemic to the Sonoran Desert and adjacent regions, and known for its defensive tactic of standing on its head to squirt a noxious spray.
What part of speech is pinacate beetle?
Pinacate beetle is a noun.
What is the plural of pinacate beetle?
The plural of pinacate beetle is pinacate beetles.

Words near pinacate beetle in the dictionary

  1. pina
  2. pina colada
  3. pina coladas
  4. Pinabacdao
  5. pinabete
  6. pinacate beetle
  7. pinacate beetles
  8. pinacate bug
  9. pinacate bugs
  10. pinaceous
  11. pinaces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pinacate beetle (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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Cite this entry: “pinacate beetle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pinacate_beetle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.