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/
  • (colloquial, folk speech, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /məˈskitə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

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

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /məˈskiːto/
• (Ottawa Valley Dialect) IPA^(key): [məˈs̠kɪt̞o], [-t̞ə]
• 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.

   Synonyms: (US, informal) skeeter, (informal) mossie

   • 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.

   • 1987 May 9, Bod Lederer, “US Denies AIDS Bio War with Contradictions”, in Gay Community News, page 8:

     Nicaragua has been investigating the possibility that the 1985 outbreak of dengue fever along its Honduran border may have resulted from the release of infected mosquitos by U.S. reconnaissance overflights.

   • 2011, Sharon S. Delaney, Celestial Mesa: 2012, →ISBN, page 120:

     Sue had climbed up to the rafters and attached her mosquito netting over one of the exposed beams in the ceiling, and Edgar had climbed into the bed under it so no flying buzzies would mess with his ears.

Hypernyms

• gnat
• midge

Derived terms

• anopheles mosquito (Anopheles spp.)
• antimosquito
• Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus)
• common mosquito, common house mosquito (Culex pipiens)
• culex mosquito (Culex spp.)
• house mosquito (Culex pipiens)
• malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae)
• marsh mosquito (Anopheles spp.)
• mosquital
• mosquitarium
• mosquiticide
• mosquito bar
• mosquito bite
• mosquitocide
• Mosquito Coast
• mosquito coil
• mosquito drawers
• mosquito dunk
• mosquito-eater
• mosquitoey
• mosquito fern (Azolla spp.)
• mosquito fish, mosquitofish, mosquitofish (Gambusia spp. et al.)
• mosquito fleet
• mosquito flower (Lopezia racemosa)
• mosquitogenic
• mosquito hawk (Tipulomorpha spp. or Epiprocta spp.)
• mosquitoish
• mosquito larva
• mosquitoless
• mosquito net
• mosquito netting
• mosquito party
• mosquito plant
• mosquito press
• mosquitoproof
• mosquito wire
• nail mosquito (Anopheles spp.)
• neato mosquito
• salt-marsh mosqito
• skeeto
• snow mosquito
• tea mosquito (Helopeltis spp.)
• tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus, Aedes aegypti)
• yellow-fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti)

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

Further reading

• “mosquito”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2025
• “mosquito”, in Dicionário Estraviz de galego (in Galician), 2014–2025

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.

     [[…] será aguardado del danno de los mosquitos e de todas maneras de moscas que sean pozonadas o mordedores. E esto es mas descendiendo sobr'esta piedra la virtud de figura de mosquito, o de alguna d'estas 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. By surface analysis, mosca +‎ -ito. Piecewise doublet of mosquete.

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: melga, (North Brazil) carapanã, (Northeast Brazil) muriçoca, (Brazil) pernilongo

Derived terms

• mosquitada
• mosquitão (augmentative)
• mosquiteiro
• mosquitinho (diminutive)
• mosquitito (diminutive)
• mosquito-da-dengue
• mosquito-elétrico
• mosquito-palha
• mosquito-pólvora
• mosquito-prego
• mosquito-remela
• mosquitozinho (diminutive)
• mosquitozito (diminutive)

Related terms

• mosca

Descendants

• → Hunsrik: Muskitt

Further reading

• “mosquito”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “mosquito”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “mosquito”, in Dicionário infopédia da Lingua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish mosquito, from mosca + -ito.

Cognate with Sicilian muschitta (“midge”), Italian moschetto. Doublet of mosquete (“musket”)

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 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024