What Does “A Plague of Grasshoppers” Mean?
“Plague” is reserved for the most severe grasshopper gatherings — specifically, outbreaks of the locust phase, when certain grasshopper species undergo a genuine physical and behavioral transformation triggered by crowding, turning solitary, camouflaged insects into gregarious, migratory swarms capable of stripping farmland bare in a matter of hours. The word carries obvious biblical weight, echoing the locust plague described in the Book of Exodus, one of history’s most famous references to insect devastation.
Unlike “cloud,” which simply describes visual scale, “plague” specifically implies destruction and agricultural threat, and it remains the term most reached for in news coverage of real, modern locust outbreaks, which still occur periodically across parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
Example: “A plague of grasshoppers swept through the county, leaving fields stripped bare within days.”
Related: Collective Nouns for Insects · What Is a Group of Grasshoppers Called? · A Cloud of Grasshoppers · What Is a Group of Locusts Called?