mosquito
English edit
Etymology edit
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 (“mosquito”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge.
Pronunciation edit
- (US) IPA(key): /məˈski.toʊ/
Audio (US) (file) - (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /mɒˈskiː.təʊ/
Audio (UK) (file) - (Canada) IPA(key): /məˈskiːto/
- Rhymes: -iːtəʊ
Noun edit
mosquito (plural mosquitos or mosquitoes)
- 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.
- Synonym: (US, informal) skeeter
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1941 March 12, Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1970, page 461:
- We lit a driftwood fire to help keep the mosquitoes away. It was partially successful.
Hypernyms edit
Derived terms edit
- antimosquito
- malaria mosquito (Anopheles spp.)
- mosquito bar
- mosquito bite
- mosquitocide
- Mosquito Coast
- mosquito coil
- mosquito drawers
- mosquitoey
- mosquito fern (Azolla spp.)
- mosquito fish
- mosquitofish (Gambusia spp. et al.)
- mosquito fleet
- mosquitogenic
- mosquito hawk
- mosquito hawk (Tipulomorpha or Epiprocta)
- mosquito larva
- mosquito net
- mosquito netting
- mosquito plant
- mosquito wire
- neato mosquito
- tiger mosquito
- tiger mosquito (Aedes spp.)
Related terms edit
Descendants edit
Translations edit
Verb edit
mosquito (third-person singular simple present mosquitos, present participle mosquitoing, simple past and past participle mosquitoed)
- To fly close to the ground, seemingly without a course.
Galician edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
mosquito m (plural mosquitos)
Italian edit
Noun edit
mosquito m (plural mosquiti)
Old Spanish edit
Etymology edit
From mosca, mosco (“fly”) + -ito.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
mosquito m (plural mosquitos)
- Diminutive of mosca; a mosquito.
- c. 1250, Alfonso X, Lapidario, f. 107v:
- […] ſera aguardado del danno delos moſquitos. ⁊ de todas maneras de moſcas que seã pozonadas o mordedores. / Et eſto es mas deſcendiẽdo ſobreſta piedra la ũtud de fig̃a de moſq̃to, o de alguna deſtas otras moſcas que dixiemos.
- […] he will be kept from the harm of mosquitos and all manners of flies that are venomous or that bite. And this will happen more when over this stone descends the virtue of the figure of the mosquito, or that of another one of the flies we mentioned.
Descendants edit
Portuguese edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
- Hyphenation: mos‧qui‧to
Noun edit
mosquito m (plural mosquitos)
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
- → Hunsrik: Muskitt
Spanish edit
Etymology edit
From mosca + -ito (diminutive suffix), or Old Spanish moquito. Cognate with Sicilian muschitta (“midge”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
mosquito m (plural mosquitos)
- mosquito
- gnat
- (Mexico, colloquial) trimmer
- (literal) Diminutive of mosco (“small fly”)
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
- → Belarusian: маскі́т (maskít)
- → Dutch: muskiet
- → Esperanto: moskito
- → English: mosquito
- → Estonian: moskiito
- → French: moustique (with metathesis)
- → German: Moskito
- →⇒ Icelandic: moskítófluga
- → Latvian: moskīts
- → Norman: moustique (with metathesis)
- → Russian: моски́т (moskít)
- → Yiddish: מאָסקיט (moskit)
- → Ukrainian: москі́т (moskít)
See also edit
- jején m
Further reading edit
- “mosquito”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014