[AS.] Any insect of the order Coleoptera (or wings in a sheath), having four wings, the outer pair being stiff cases for covering the others when folded up, and defending them from hard substances underground. The black beetle is the common large cockroach. The curculio or weevil lives on fruit or grains ; tiger-beetles are striped; carrion-beetles live on dead animals; the Spanish-fly is a bright-green beetle; stag beetles have long jaws. The turnip-fly or flea-beetle and click-beetle are destructive to crops. There are many thousands of different species of coleoptera, and they vary very much in size and appearance.