1. An insect that cuts or eats out portions of the leaves of trees; spec. in leaf-cutter ant, bee.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., I. 191. The leaf-cutter bee also (Apis centuncularis) by cutting pieces out … disfigures it [the rose] considerably.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 368. The … Bees of the genus Megachile are commonly known as Leaf-cutters.
1899. Daily News, 26 July, 8/2. Another community, Leaf-Cutter Ants, of North America.
b. A bird of similar habits.
1884. G. Allen, in Longm. Mag., Jan., 291. The South American leaf-cutter has … bony bosses on its beak and palate.
2. A paper-knife. ‘U.S. rare’ (Cent. Dict.).
So Leaf-cutting ppl. a., in leaf-cutting ant, bee = prec. (sense 1).
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), III. 272. The Leaf-cutting Bee.
1874. Lubbock, Wild Flowers, i. 6. A species of acacia … is apt to be stripped of its leaves by a leaf-cutting ant.
