The word "insect" comes from the
Latin word
insectum, meaning "with a notched or divided body", or literally "cut into", from the neuter singular past participle of
insectare, "to cut into, to cut up", from
in- "into" and
secare "to cut";
[9] because insects appear "cut into" three sections.
Pliny the Elder introduced the Latin designation as a loan-translation of the
Greek word
ἔντομος (
éntomos) or "insect" (as in
entomology), which was
Aristotle's term for this class of life, also in reference to their "notched" bodies. "Insect" first appears documented in English in 1601 in
Holland's translation of Pliny. Translations of Aristotle's term also form the usual word for "insect" in
Welsh (
trychfil, from
trychu "to cut" and
mil, "animal"),
Serbo-Croatian (
zareznik, from
rezati, "to cut"),
Russian (
насекомое nasekomoje, from
seč'/-sekat', "to cut"), etc.
[9]