Meanings
present singular third person stridulates · participle present stridulating · participle past stridulated · past stridulated
- intransitiveTo make a high-pitched chirping, grating, hissing, or squeaking sound, as male crickets and grasshoppers do, by rubbing certain body parts together.
The crickets stridulated their everlasting monotonous meaningful note.
1984, John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick, page 551 more example
A window was open, and the crickets were stridulating at an ominous speed in the black motionless foliage.
1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 191
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo make a high-pitched chirping, grating, hissing, or squeaking sound, as male crickets and grasshoppers do, by rubbing certain body parts together.
More synonyms by meaning
verbmake a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latinstrīdulus“giving a shrill sound, creaking”
- Englishstridulate
Back-formation from stridulation. (From earlier term stridulous; from Latin strīdulus (“giving a shrill sound, creaking”), from strīdō (“utter a shrill or harsh sound; creak, shriek, grate, hiss”))
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian цвърча
- цвърча (cvărča)to make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
Finnish sirittää
- sirittääto make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
French striduler
- stridulerto make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
Italian stridulare
- stridulareto make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
Māori kitā
- kitāto make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
Spanish estridular
- estridularto make a noise by rubbing body parts as do crickets
Cite this entry
stridulate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stridulate
“stridulate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stridulate. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “stridulate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stridulate.
Source: stridulate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.