A katydid is a large insect that looks a bit like a grasshopper, usually green, and spends much of its life in trees and tall bushes. The famous ones live in North America. At night the males rub their wings together and make a dry, repeated call. English speakers heard that call as “Katy did, Katy did,” and that is how the insect got its name — from the sound, not from a person named Katy. Katydids belong with grasshoppers and crickets, but they are not the same animal: their feelers are often very long, sometimes longer than the body, and many of them are leaf-shaped, which is how they hide. In American English, katydid is the ordinary name. In British English you will hear it much less; people there more often say bush-cricket for insects of this kind. People also stretch the word a little and use katydid for the whole group, not only the one whose song really sounds like “Katy did.” It is a nature word, not a fancy or technical one in American speech.

紡織娘（一種大型螽斯）