boll weevil

English

boll weevil beetle (sense 1) on a cotton boll

boll weevil (plural boll weevils)

A beetle (Anthonomus grandis) measuring an average length of six millimeters (¼ inch), which feeds on cotton buds and flowers, native to Central America.
- 1929, William Faulkner, “The Sound and the Fury”, in The Sound and the Fury & As I Lay Dying, New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1946, →OCLC, page 248:
  “ […] What do you reckon the boll-weevils’ll eat if you dont^[sic] get those cultivators in shape to raise them a crop?” I says, “sage grass?”
(US politics, informal, dated) A conservative Southern Democrat.
- 2019, Richard Carr, quoting John Chamberlain, March of the Moderates […] ‎^[1], Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
  As the veteran columnist John Chamberlain put it back in 1982, the ATARI Democrats ‘include many of the Southern “boll weevil” contingent that has supported Reagan on taxes, [and]^[sic] is for using government to channel investment money to the newer “high tech” industries.

beetle