insectoid n.

In the ‘Other Earth’, the first world the narrator visits outside our own, he finds prevailing many of the conditions which agitate Europe to-day; in later stages of his quest, among the ‘insectoids’, for instance, he finds these difficulties resolved.

Of the populations of the sub-galaxy most were descendants of the original Ichthyoids or Arachnoids; but…not a few that had sprung from avians, insectoids or plant-men.

Or consider one of the small insectoids I studied. It breeds here in the usual manner, then the female crawls out into the light to lay her eggs.

From a counter of her variegated display booth, Mother Mastiff was pleading amiably with a pair of small, jeweled thranx touristas. Her technique was admirable and competent. It ought to be, he reflected. She'd had plenty of time in which to perfect it. He was only mildly surprised at the insectoid’s presence. Where humans go, thranx also, and vicey-versy, don’t you know?

CAPOK: an impolite colloquialism by which the baser elements of the various human races of Thanator refer, derogatorily, to the Yathoon insectoids; cognate to ‘bug’.

This is a slightly less blatant version of the game of space opera, in which one writes a western, then trades earth for Omega Orion XI, trades the six-guns for lasers, masers, rasers, phasers, or occasionally for broadswords and crossbows (in a high-tech civilization, mind you); the horses transmute to FTL starcruisers, the cleancut collegiate-type good guys in white hats turn into cleancut collegiate-type good guys in mylar jumpsuits, and the squinty-eyed bad guys in black hats turn into clones, giant ambulatory carrots, humanoids, virusoids, or insectoids (or vice-versa, depending on one’s level of xenophobia).

A creature the size of his thumb fluttered clumsily, ever closer to him. Multiple legs brushed his skin again. ‘Damn,’ he mumbled, and once more made futile swatting motions. The insectoid was as persistent as a terrestrial fly.

One by one, the insectoids drifted upslope to the makeshift cavity where Dwer and Rety exposed their faces for air.

He pictured wriggling insectoids, dropping from the night-bound branches.

I was out there racking my alien brain, trying to formulate some sort of plan to take down Number 1—a plan that didn’t include me dying. The way my parents did when they went up against the six-and-a-half-foot-tall insectoid with the bulging, plum-colored body and stringy red dreadlocks dangling down between his antennae.