mosquito

See also: Mosquito

English

Aedes aegypti biting a human.

Alternative forms

• muskito (obsolete)

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 (“mosquito”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge. First attested in the 1580s.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /məˈski.toʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

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

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /məˈskiːto/
  • (Ottawa Valley) IPA^(key): [məˈskiːɾ̥o], [məˈskɪto]
• Rhymes: -iːtəʊ
• Hyphenation: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito (plural mosquitoes or mosquitos)

2. 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

• gnat
• midge

 

Derived terms

• 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

• Diminutive: mossie/mozzie (Australia, UK) or skeeter (US)

Descendants

• → Cornish: moskito
• Jamaican Creole: maskitta

Translations

See mosquito/translations § Noun.

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.

Galician

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/ [mos̺ˈki.t̪ʊ]
• Rhymes: -ito
• Hyphenation: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Italian

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquiti)

1. mosquito

Old Spanish

Etymology

From mosca (“fly”) ‎ -ito (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/
• Rhymes: -ito

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. 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

• Spanish: mosquito (see there for further descendants)

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mosquito, from Old Spanish mosquito, from mosca -ito.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.tu/, /musˈki.tu/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.tu/, /musˈki.tu/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /moʃˈki.tu/, /muʃˈki.tu/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.to/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /muʃˈki.tu/

• Rhymes: -itu
• Hyphenation: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

   Synonyms: (regional) carapanã, (regional) muriçoca

Derived terms

• mosquiteiro

Descendants

• → Hunsrik: Muskitt

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish mosquito, from mosca -ito.

Cognate with Sicilian muschitta (“midge”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/ [mosˈki.t̪o]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ito
• Syllabification: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

   Synonyms: zancudo, (Mexico) moyote, cénzalo

2. gnat
3. (Mexico, colloquial) trimmer
4. (literal) diminutive of mosco (“small fly”)

Derived terms

• cerebro de mosquito
• mosquitero
• mosquito simúlido
• mosquito tigre

 

Descendants

• → Belarusian: маскі́т (maskít)
• → Dutch: muskiet
  • Afrikaans: muskiet
  • Berbice Creole Dutch: maskiti
  • Negerhollands: moeskit, moskite, muskit, moskit
  • → Sranan Tongo: maskita
    • → Caribbean Hindustani: maskitá
    • → Caribbean Javanese: maskitah
• → Esperanto: moskito
• → English: mosquito, muskito (obsolete)
  • → Cornish: moskito
  • Jamaican Creole: maskitta
• → Estonian: moskiito
• → French: moustique (with metathesis)
• → German: Moskito
• →⇒ Icelandic: moskítófluga
• → Latvian: moskīts
• → Norman: moustique (with metathesis)
• → Portuguese: mosquito
  • → Hunsrik: Muskitt
• → Russian: моски́т (moskít)
  • → Yiddish: מאָסקיט (moskit)
• → Ukrainian: москі́т (moskít)

See also

• jején m

Further reading

• “mosquito”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28