mosquito
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
muhskeetohSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
məsˈkitoʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals
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.
Dated form of Miskito.
verb
To fly close to the ground, seemingly without a course.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals
Used this way, mosquito is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use mosquito
- “A tiny mosquito bit my arm, leaving an itchy red bump.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.