CJK Unified Ideograph-87Bd

It is a classical term for locusts and related grasshoppers.

The safe English gloss is locust, but old texts use 螽 broadly for locust-like crop pests. That is why translations wobble between locust, grasshopper, and katydid: the ancient category was a farmer's warning, not a modern species label.

Why does 螽 change meaning in old texts?

The compound and setting decide whether it is pest, disaster, or blessing.

The traceable trail runs through the Book of Odes poem 螽斯 and the Spring and Autumn annals, where 螽 records locust outbreaks. Its everyday job was blunt: name the insect and log the agricultural damage.

Later commentary turns 螽斯 (zhōngsī) into a fertility image: clustered wings and teeming offspring, tied to a flourishing household. The character sits in the 虫 insect-marked family with a 夂- or 冬-related sound element; that structure explains the form, not a synonym.

Which meaning should I use for 螽?

Use it as an insect term; let the compound supply the nuance.

Alone, 螽 is rare, literary, and heavy with context, so it makes a poor modern bug icon. 螽斯 can carry the many-descendants allusion, while 雨螽 reports insects falling in a damaging outbreak. Japanese sources read it inago and Korean sources read it jong; those are language-specific readings, not shared slang.