Red bug

red·bug

[red-buhg]
noun Chiefly South Atlantic States.
chigger ( def 1 ).

Origin:
1795–1805; red1 + bug1

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
redbug (ˈrɛdˌbʌɡ) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
(US) another name for chigger

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Red bug is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
American Heritage
Medical Dictionary

red bug or redbug
n.
See chigger.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia

red bug

any insect of the family Pyrrhocoridae (order Heteroptera), which contains more than 300 species. The red bug-a fairly common, gregarious, plant-feeding insect found mostly in the tropics and subtropics-is oval in shape and brightly coloured with red. It ranges in length from 8 to 18 mm (0.3 to 0.7 inch). Dimorphism, a condition in which two or more visibly different forms exist, may occur in some species (e.g., Pyrrhocoris apterus can be winged or wingless)

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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