mosquito

• muskito (obsolete)

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.

• (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

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.

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

• → Cornish: moskito
• Jamaican Creole: maskitta

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.

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

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

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

mosquito m (plural mosquiti)

1. mosquito

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

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

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.

• Spanish: mosquito (see there for further descendants)

Borrowed from Spanish mosquito, from Old Spanish mosquito, from mosca + -ito. By surface analysis, mosca +‎ -ito. Piecewise doublet of mosquete.

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

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

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

• → Hunsrik: Muskitt

• “mosquito”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “mosquito”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025

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

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

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/ [mosˈki.t̪o]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

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

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

   Synonyms: zancudo, (Mexico) moyote, cénzalo

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

• → 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)

• jején m

• “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