Word.ws English Dictionary

springtail

springtail noun: any of various wingless hexapods, of the subclass Collembola, with spring-like legs.

springtail: any of various wingless hexapods, of the subclass Collembola, with spring-like legs
Image: Petter Bøckman, based on Sminthurus viridis (det F, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

springtail (plural springtails)

  1. Any of various wingless hexapods, of the subclass Collembola, with spring-like legs.
    • Among the wonders of the natural world that few people have ever noticed: a semiaquatic springtail in motion.2022 November 7, Oliver Whang, “Why Fly or Swim When You Can Jump? Ask the Springtail.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • Springtails, or collembolans, are strictly not insects because of technicalities to do with the position of their mouthparts, but they are the closest cousins of insects.2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherlands, Penguin, published 2023, page 214

Forms of springtail

pluralspringtails

Origin of springtail

From spring + tail.

Questions about springtail

What does springtail mean?
Springtail means any of various wingless hexapods, of the subclass Collembola, with spring-like legs.
What part of speech is springtail?
Springtail is a noun.
What is the plural of springtail?
The plural of springtail is springtails.

Words near springtail in the dictionary

  1. Springsteen
  2. Springsteenian
  3. Springsteens
  4. Springston
  5. Springstons
  6. springtail
  7. springtails
  8. Springthorpe
  9. springtide
  10. springtides
  11. springtime

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: springtail (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: “springtail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/springtail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.