mosquito

Etymology

From Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of Spanish mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), Swedish dialectal mausa (“mosquito”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”). See also midge.

Pronunciation

• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /məˈski.toʊ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɒsˈkiː.təʊ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtəʊ

Noun

mosquito (plural mosquitos or mosquitoes)

1. 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

mosquito (third-person singular simple present mosquitos, present participle mosquitoing, simple past and past participle mosquitoed)

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

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Etymology

From mosca, mosco (“fly”) +‎ -ito.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [mosˈki.to]

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. diminutive of mosca; a mosquito.
   • c. 1250, Alfonso X, Lapidario, f. 107v:

     […] ſera aguardado del danno delos moſquitos. ¬ de todas maneras de moſcas que seá pozonadas o mordedores. / Et eſto es mas deſcendiédo ſobreſta piedra la útud de fiǵa de moſq́to, 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.

Etymology

From mosca +‎ -ito

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /muʃˈkitu/

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Etymology

Diminutive of mosca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito
2. gnat
3. diminutive of mosco, small fly

See also

• jején m