Etymology
The word "bug" and its earlier spelling "bugge" means bedbug. Many other creatures are called bugs, such as the lady bug (ladybird outside the U.S), the potato bug, or the slang use of the word for any insect, or even for microscopic germs, or diseases caused by these germs, but the actual word "bug," in its original sense, meant specifically the bedbug and nothing else.
The term bed bug may also be spelled bedbug or bed-bug, though published sources consistently use the unhyphenated two-word name bed bug. They have been known by a variety of other names, including wall louse, mahogany flat, crimson rambler, heavy dragoon, chinche bug, and redcoat.
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Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)