Is also the name of an insect of the family Gryllidae. They're similar to grasshoppers, and if anyone can tell me the difference I would be delighted, as I'm sorry but I haven't got a clue. Both crickets and grasshoppers belong to the family Orthoptera, or Saltatoria.
That irritating chirping noise you hear on summer evenings is almost certainly due to males rubbing together their wingcases to attract females (whatever happened to flowers and dinner in an expensive restaurant, I ask you?).
While the house cricket (living, surprisingly enough, in houses) is most familiar to people, most crickets live underground.
Jiminy Cricket, in Disney's Pinocchio, was possibly the only famous cricket.
With thanks to
Hutchinson's New Twentieth Century Encyclopaedia for the
Latin.