thrips

thrips noun: any of the many small insects of the order Thysanoptera, especially those that attack useful plants.

Image: Alton N. Sparks, Jr., University of Georgia, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 us, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

thrips (plural thrips or thripses)

Any of the many small insects of the order Thysanoptera, especially those that attack useful plants.
- The turnrows and margins of the fields should be cultivated often enough to prevent the growth of weeds, many forms of which harbor the onion thrips.1919, Frank Hurlbut Chittenden, Control of the Onion Thrips, page 9
- The thousands of thrips species include among their number the smallest of all winged insects.2002, Thrips, article in International Wildlife Encyclopedia Volume 19, Picture caption, page 2676

செடிப்பேன், பேன்

plural	thrips
plural	thripses
singular alternative alternative	thrip

Borrowed from Ancient Greek θρίψ (thríps, “wood-worm”).

What does thrips mean?: Thrips means any of the many small insects of the order Thysanoptera, especially those that attack useful plants.
What is thrips in Tamil?: Thrips in Tamil is செடிப்பேன், பேன். See Thrips meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is thrips?: Thrips is a noun.
What is the plural of thrips?: The plural of thrips is thrips.

Adapted from Wiktionary: thrips (page history and authors); thrips (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “thrips.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thrips. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.