blind-fly

English

Male of a Haematopota species of blind-fly, showing the well-developed and functional eyes

Alternative forms

• blindfly, blind fly

Noun

blind-fly (countable and uncountable, plural blind-flies)

1. (countable) Any of several medium-sized blood-sucking flies, of the family Tabanidae, usually species in the genus Haematopota.
   • 1898, Arthur Dunley-Owen, The Lancet: The Blind Fly and the locust in the evolution of the malaria parasite‎^[1]:

     I caught a number of that species of Tabanidae which has a large, grey-striped body, greenish-yellow eyes, and entirely transparent wings. This is locally termed the "blind fly" and it feeds on blood.

   • 1961 June 8, Robert Barrass, New Scientist: The Visual Sense in "Blind-Flies"‎^[2]:

     While the bite of a mosquito or a tsetse fly may not be noticed, the bite of a blind-fly is very painful. The female takes about five minutes to gorge itself with blood and when it leaves the host animal its abdomen is so distended that it must fly with difficulty. Once it has started to probe it can be killed or picked off with the fingers quite easily. It is perhaps because of this that the name blind fly came to be used for a fly which has large eyes and is by no means blind.

2. (uncountable) The game of blind man's buff

   Possibly derived from the Italian name of the game: Mosca cieca, which literally means "blind fly".

   • 1995, William Crooke, Natives of Northern India, →ISBN:

     Bengalis, like the Italians, call the name "Kana Machi, "Blind Fly", and, as with us, the blind man has to touch one of the players sitting round, and after feeling him, has to state his name.

Synonyms

• (fly of family Tabanidae): cleg, horse-fly