Hydropsyche

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A genus of caddisflies whose larvae spin silken nets to catch food in flowing water
2. Any insect belonging to a net-spinning caddisfly genus that builds catch nets in streams
3. A kind of caddisfly, found in running water, whose young filter food with silk webbing

Etymology: Hydropsyche is the name of a genus of caddisflies, insects whose larvae spin silk nets across fast-flowing streams to catch food. The name was coined in the nineteenth century from Greek roots: "hydro-", meaning water, and "psyche", meaning soul, breath or butterfly. The Greek word psyche could mean a butterfly or moth, a sense that came from the idea of the soul as a winged thing leaving the body at death, and early naturalists borrowed that older sense for insects in general. So the name literally means something like "water-moth" or "water-butterfly," which suits an adult caddisfly that resembles a small moth hovering over a stream. The name follows a common pattern in scientific naming, where classical Greek words were combined to label newly described organisms. Nobody in antiquity used "hydropsyche" as a word; it was assembled by taxonomists, who often drew on older meanings of familiar words to describe a creature's appearance or habit.