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I was looking for a solution today and my Seiko Oxford crossword solver came up with two words of which I have never heard. I cannot find definitions of either one in Chambers or any of the on-line resources I use, so wondered if anyone here had ever come across them. The words are:

ACRIDIID and ACROATIC

P.S. I don't have the Oxford Dictionary, which would be the obvious place to start.

Hi Seamus, found this

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Acroatic

Thanks. I'm sure it will be useful at one of the Christmas parties this year!

?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/acridid

You could chirrup in with this one

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ft3wAAAAMAAJ&q=acridiid&dq=acridiid&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj31q2Kgb7JAhUDMKYKHcIOAdcQ6AEIKzAD

Ah, it looks like it may be a corruption of ACRIDID. Could it be an obscure plural perhaps?

The full Oxford English Dictionary online gives Acridiid as an alternative to Acridid rather than a corruption. They give 2 journal references from the nineteenth and early 20th century:

1889 Proc. National Mus. 12 187 Five specimens of a rather large Acridiid were collected at Cerros Island.

1923 H. Maxwell-Lefroy Man. Entomol. viii. 54 The Acridiids form the most important group of the Orthoptera and contain the true locusts.