mosquito

Definition

A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes carrying diseases like malaria, dengue and yellow fever.

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), dialectal Swedish mausa (“fly”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge. First attested in the 1580s.

Example Sentences

• "I do not quite know what it was that made me poke my head out of the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting right through it."
• "We lit a driftwood fire to help keep the mosquitoes away. It was partially successful."
• "Nicaragua has been investigating the possibility that the 1985 outbreak of dengue fever along its Honduran border may have resulted from the release of infected mosquitos by U.S. reconnaissance overflights."

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