mosquito

Meanings

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 and yellow fever.

Verb

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

Related

Broader meaning words

• gnat
• midge

Origin

• Borrowed from Spanish mosquito ("gnat"), diminutive of mosca, 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.