Definition of "chigger" [chigger]

• Any of various small, six-legged larvae of mites of the family Trombiculidae, parasitic on insects, humans, and other vertebrates. The chigger's bite produces a wheal that is usually accompanied by severe itching. Also called chigoe, harvest bug, harvest mite, jigger2, red bug. (noun)
• See chigoe. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A chinese person who acts white is called a chigger (I know sounds like an insect) * I'm sure you can figure out why that is"
• "The mite, Mr. Snow informed her, was called a chigger—he advised her to apply mud poultices to her itching legs, a remedy Tasmin adopted with some reluctance, since it rather cut against her vanity."
• "Various other names such as chigger-flea, sand-flea, jigger, chigger are also applied to this insect as well as to a minute red mite that burrows into the skin in much the same way as the female of the flea."