Library / English Dictionary

GNAT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

(British usage) mosquito

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("gnat" is a kind of...):

mosquito (two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of various small biting flies: midges; biting midges; black flies; sand flies

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("gnat" is a kind of...):

dipteran; dipteron; dipterous insect; two-winged insects (insects having usually a single pair of functional wings (anterior pair) with the posterior pair reduced to small knobbed structures and mouth parts adapted for sucking or lapping or piercing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gnat"):

biting midge; no-see-um; punkey; punkie; punky (minute two-winged insect that sucks the blood of mammals and birds and other insects)

midge (minute two-winged mosquito-like fly lacking biting mouthparts; appear in dancing swarms especially near water)

psychodid (a fly of the family Psychodidae)

Phlebotomus papatasii; sand fly; sandfly (any of various small dipterous flies; bloodsucking females can transmit sandfly fever and leishmaniasis)

black fly; blackfly; buffalo gnat (small blackish stout-bodied biting fly having aquatic larvae; sucks the blood of birds as well as humans and other mammals)

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