sembling

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noun

The practice of attracting male butterflies or other insects by exposing the encaged female. It used to be done by collectors wanting to procure specimens.

Scrabble 13
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Meanings

nounsembling (uncountable)
  1. archaicuncountableThe practice of attracting male butterflies or other insects by exposing the encaged female. It used to be done by collectors wanting to procure specimens.

    time of sembling birds' droppings

    1899, James William Tutt, A Natural History of the British Lepidoptera
    1 more example

    Upon this is founded the practice of sembling, as it is called by the London collectors, among whom, as we learn from Barbut and Harris, it has been long in use, for entrapping the males of the fox-moth […]

    1831, James Rennie, Insect Architecture
verb
  1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of semble

Origin

Compare assembling.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

sembling. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sembling

MLA

“sembling.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sembling. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sembling,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sembling.

Source: sembling on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.