footganger

footganger

See also: foot-ganger

English

Alternative forms

• foot-ganger

Etymology

Perhaps from Dutch or Afrikaans voetganger (“pedestrian”, literally “foot-goer”), or a partial calque of German Fußgänger (“pedestrian”), equivalent to foot +‎ ganger (“goer, walker, stepper”).

Noun

footganger (plural footgangers)

1. (entomology) A juvenile locust or grasshopper while in its wingless or flightless phase.
   • 1902, Journal of the Society of Arts:

     Midway between Bloomfontein and Kimberley, while riding with Major Beresford, of the South African Constabulary, at the foot of some low hills in the Karoo bush, I came across great numbers of the footgangers.

   • 1904, Mark Sykes, John Hugh Smith, Edward Granville Browne, Dar-ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey Through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey:

     We passed several swarms of locusts in the footganger stage; but owing to the lateness of their appearance the damage they effected was slight, though we met many people coming from the west, whose crops had been utterly destroyed.