katydid

plural katydids

1. USAn insect of the family Tettigoniidae

   In the night the katydids and crickets screeched in waves, soft then loud, back and forth.

   2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 52

   2 more examples

   I have noticed all these, and some at a much earlier date than the first faint lisping of a timid katydid; and all such sights and sounds are similarly suggestive—the summer is drawing to its close.

   1889, Charles Conrad Abbott, Days Out of Doors, New York: D. Appleton and Company, page 194

   A centurion who resembled a katydid waved something that looked like a pop-up toaster, and the next thing I knew, my laser melted, my shields were Play-Doh, and some kind of high energy plasma blasted me all the way down to Level 6. I fought my way back okay, but this time my path was blocked by this giant millipede.

   2019, Gordon Korman, Level 13: A Slacker Novel, Scholastic Press, page 114

   Synonyms: bush-cricket, tettigoniid