mosquito

Meaning

Noun

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.

Verb

To fly close to the ground, seemingly without a course.

Synonyms

gnat

midge

fly

✈️

skeeter

culex

sandfly

aedes

anopheles

anopheline

bee

🐝

bug

🐛

gadfly

wriggler

culicidae

Translations

moustique

🦟

mosquito

🦟

zanzara

🦟

Mücke

Moskito

🦟

mosquito

🦟

mug

🦟

mosquit

🦟

muskiet

κουνούπι

Stechmücke

🦟

culex

zancudo

sivrisinek

🦟

Pronounced as (IPA)

/məˈski.toʊ/

Etymology

Cognate with West Flemish: meuzie

Cognate with Swedish: mausa

Cognate with Lithuanian: musė

Cognate with Sicilian: muschitta

In summary

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. First attested in the 1580s.