Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
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noun
A small tropical flea, Tunga penetrans, whose females burrow under the skin of animals, including humans, and lay their eggs, causing strong irritation and sores.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
small tropical flea; the fertile female burrows under the skin of the host including humans
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: chigger, chigoe flea, Tunga penetrans
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: flea
History
Uncertain. Possibly from a Cariban language term such as Kari'na siko (“chigoe”) (early recorded variant chico), from Proto-Cariban *tikô, or else a West African borrowing such as Wolof or Yoruba jiga (“insect”). The eighteenth century historian Charlevoix refers to them as chique in his 1730 history of Hispaniola.
