Acaricide

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈkɛɹ.əˌsid/

Definitions

1. A chemical formulation employed for the destruction of harmful arachnids, particularly ticks and various mite species
2. An active ingredient utilized to eradicate specific pests, including ticks and particular mites, that pose risks to crops or health
3. A substance designed to eliminate ticks and mites that damage plants or transmit diseases

Etymology: Acaricide is a modern technical coinage, built in English from two parts that have travelled very different routes. The first part, "acarid", comes from the mite family Acaridae, whose name rests on the Greek "akari", a tiny mite or tick. The second part, "-cide", comes from Latin "caedere", meaning "to cut down" or "to kill", which passed through Middle French "-cide" and entered English as a suffix meaning "killer" or "killing". Its ancestry reaches back to the same ancient root that gave Latin its verb for striking and slaying. The combination follows the pattern of older words like "insecticide" and "pesticide", where "-cide" was attached to a Latin or Greek stem to name a substance that destroys a particular kind of pest. Because the suffix was already productive in English, anyone needing a name for a chemical that kills mites could assemble one directly from the pieces, with no older English word to draw on.