I. məˈskēd.(ˌ)ō, -ē(ˌ)tō, -ēd.ə, -ētə noun
( plural mosquitoes also mosquitos )
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Spanish, diminutive of mosca fly, from Latin musca — more at midge
: any of numerous two-winged flies of the family Culicidae that have a rather narrow abdomen, usually a long slender rigid proboscis, and narrow wings with a fringe of scales on the margin and usually on each side of the wing veins, that have in the male broad feathery antennae and mouthparts not fitted for piercing and in the female slender antennae and a set of needlelike organs in the proboscis with which they puncture the skin of animals to suck the blood, that have the eggs laid on the surface of stagnant water, that in many species pass through several generations in the course of a year and hibernate as adults and in others winter in the egg state, and that in some species are the only vectors of certain diseases — see aedes , anopheles , culex ; compare gnat
II. noun
( plural mosquito or mosquitos )
Usage: usually capitalized
Etymology: by alteration
: miskito