| 释义 |
▪ I. mosquito|məˈskiːtəʊ, mɒ-|
Forms: 6 muskyto, mosqueta, 6–8 musketa, 7 muskeito, musceto, muscheto, muskitto, musqueeto, muskeeto, 7–8 musketoe, muscato, musket(t)o, 8 moskito, muskeitoe, mosqueto, 8–9 moschet(t)o, moschito, musqueto, musquitto, 9 musquitoe, mosquetoe, 6– muskito, 7–9 musquito, 7– mosquito.
[a. Sp. and Pg. mosquito, dim. of mosca (:—L. musca) fly.
Cf. F. moustique (whence moustick Obs.), a metathetic alteration of the Sp. word.]
1. A ‘gnat’ of several different species of the genus Culex (esp. C. mosquito) and other allied genera, the female of which has a long proboscis, by means of which it punctures the skins of animals (including man) and sucks their blood.
Certain kinds of mosquito are the agents by which the germs of malaria are introduced into the human body.
c1583M. Phillips in Hakluyt's Voy. (1589) 568 We were also oftentimes greatly annoyed with a kinde of flie,..the Spanyards called them Musketas. 1600O. E. Repl. Libel iii. vii. 35 He is like a flye, or rather, because he speaketh so much for Spaniards, a Spanish mosqueta. 1623Whitbourne Newfoundland 99 A very little nimble fly.. which is called a Muskeito. 1625G. Percy in Purchas Pilgrims IV. 1685 Their bodies are all painted red to keepe away the biting of Muscetos. 1634W. Wood New Eng. Prosp. (1865) 51 The fourth is a Musketoe which is not unlike to our Gnats in England. 1655E. Terry Voy. E. India 123 In the night we were..very much disquieted with another sort [of fly] called Musqueetoes. 1665Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 121 Howbeit the Muskitto or Gnats pestered us extreamly. 1672W. Hughes Amer. Phys. 9 That very small black and poysonous Fly, called a Muscato. 1674J. Josselyn Voy. New Eng. (1675) 95 The countrie is strangely incommodated with flies, which the English call Musketaes. 1702C. Mather Magn. Chr. vi. i. (1852) 351 They were..grievously infested with moschetos. 1745Lond. Mag. 396 Peach Trees..which are Nurseries of Muskettos and other Vermin. 1747Franklin Lett. Wks. 1887 II. 98 If a musqueto..were to light on one of them. 1796Stedman Surinam II. xx. 90 We were almost devoured by the clouds of gnats or musquitoes, which arose from a neigbouring marsh. 1825J. Neal Bro. Jonathan I. 217 Kept awake all the night before by the wolves or moschettoes. 1837Landor Pentameron i. Wks. 1853 II. 310/2 The peopled region is peopled chiefly with monsters and moschitoes. 1858Lytton Alice iv. ix, At Venice I was bit to death by musquitoes. 190219th Cent. Nov. 679 The great drawback to the far north of Sweden is the Mosquitoes.
fig.1739Cibber Apol. xvi (1740) 340 While these buzzing Muscatos have been fluttering round their Eyes and Ears. 1863Reade Hard Cash I. vii. 210 When a man has a deep anxiety, some human midge or mosquito buzzes at him.
2. attrib. and Comb., as mosquito-bite, mosquito-season, mosquito-sting; mosquito-borne, mosquito-bred, mosquito-breeding, mosquito-carried, mosquito-free, mosquito-thin adjs.
1805Med. Jrnl. XIV. 113 Small lumps resembling *mosquito bites.
1961M. Hynes Med. Bacteriol. (ed. 7) xxv. 392 The Venezuelan virus is also *mosquito-borne, but the reservoir is uncertain.
1898P. Manson Trop. Diseases i. 17 The *mosquito-bred plasmodial spore.
1926M. Leinster Dew on Leaf 208 *Mosquito-breeding ponds.
1909Westm. Gaz. 11 Feb. 2/3 The City of Rio de Janeiro, as regards *mosquito-carried diseases, has..undergone a complete transformation.
1904Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Sept. 642 The measures taken at Ismailia, which have made it a *mosquito-free and malaria-free sanatorium.
1900Ibid. 10 Feb. 301 In Italy the *mosquito season..extends from the first warm days of spring to the first cold days of autumn or winter.
1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 798 The scar of a *mosquito sting.
1933R. Campbell Flowering Reeds 26 When to their roost the sacred ibis file, *Mosquito-thin against the fading West.
b. Special comb.: mosquito-bar U.S., a kind of mosquito net; mosquito-bee (see quot.); † mosquito-bier (? mistake for mosquito-bar); mosquito-blight, a plant-bug of the East Indian genus Helopeltis; mosquito-boot, a boot worn to protect the foot from mosquitos; mosquito brigade, a body of persons engaged in destroying mosquitoes, with a view to the prevention of malaria; mosquito-bush, a West Indian shrub (see quot.); mosquito-canopy, -curtain, a canopy or curtain of gauze to keep off mosquitoes; mosquito coil, a spiral made from a dried paste of pyrethrum powder with a combustion-supporting substance, which when ignited burns slowly and produces a smoke that inhibits mosquitoes from biting; mosquito door, a door designed to exclude mosquitoes from a house; mosquito-dope N. Amer., insect repellent; mosquito-fire, a fire to keep away mosquitoes; mosquito-fly, -gnat (= sense 1); mosquito hawk N. Amer., (a) the night-hawk, Chordeiles minor; (b) any dragon-fly which preys upon mosquitoes; mosquito-net, a net (of lace, gauze, etc.) to keep off mosquitoes; so mosquito-netting, a coarse fabric with open meshes, used for mosquito-nets; mosquito room, a room from which mosquitoes are excluded; Mosquito State U.S., a nickname for New Jersey; mosquito trousers, trousers designed to protect the legs from mosquitoes; mosquito wire, wire mesh used to exclude mosquitoes.
1828J. Hale Lett. fr. West 227 The *musquitoe bar..is a curtain, of the thinnest gauze, or leno, or some such slight fabric, which admits the air, and excludes the mosquitoe. 1889M. E. Bamford Up & Down Brooks 65 A section of mosquito-bar was tied over the whole. 1899D. Sharp Insects ii. 61 Some of these Insects [Melipona] are amongst the smallest of bees, so that one, or more, species go by the name of ‘Mosquito-bees’.
1814Lewis & Clarke Exped. Missouri (1893) III. 1082 The mosquitoes have been so troublesome that it was impossible even to write without the assistance of a *mosquito-bier.
1899D. Sharp Insects ii. 562 They are known as *Mosquito blight. The egg is of comparatively large size, and is placed by the bug in the stems of the tea plant.
1774E. Long Hist. Jamaica III. 884 In those places where they [sc. mosquitoes] are very numerous..the usual guard for the legs is the *muskeeto-boot, or a kind of half-trouzer, made of linen, tied above the knee, and reaching to the shoes. 1945Tee Emm (Air Ministry) V. 36 Mosquito-boots, which are issued to airmen..are meant to be worn in the evenings. This is a malaria precaution. 1956E. Ambler Night-Comers i. 1 The mosquito boots and the sweat-stained hats.
1904Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Sept. 631 The operations of the *mosquito brigade were very largely devoted to treating cesspits which were the breeding grounds of Stegomyia.
1750G. Hughes Barbadoes 169 *Musketo-Bush. This derives its name from its either real or pretended service in driving away by its smell Musketoes from bed-chambers.
1885Cassell's Encycl. Dict., *Mosquito-canopy.
1963Pyrethrum Post VII. 22/2 *Mosquito coils, as their name implies, are used to prevent adult mosquitoes from biting, particularly during the hours of sleep and are therefore designed to burn for about 8 hours. 1971Inside Kenya Today Mar. 46/2 The prospects for a mosquito coils market [printed marker] in the Far East are very promising, and if this market is fully exploited, pyrethrum powder will be a more important product of the pyrethrum industry than it is now. 1972D. Sale Love Bite ii. 31 There are some mosquito coils there, too. Light them at dusk..and you won't be troubled.
1819T. E. Bowdich Mission to Ashantee ii. xiii. 439 They sleep on bedsteads encircled with *musquito curtains of bamboo cloth.
1967P. M. Hubbard Custom of Country (1969) vi. 68 A servant who had been sitting in the veranda got up and held open the *mosquito door.
1903S. E. White Forest 383 Pack one, or absolute necessities for hard trip... Knife; *mosquito-dope; compass; match box. 1948Chicago Tribune 11 July 7/1 New mosquito dopes are being tested by fishermen now that the insects are buzzing.
1826J. F. Cooper Mohicans xiv, The smoke which settles above a *mosquetoe fire.
1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) III. 329 The *Musqueto-fly is..a large variety of the Common Gnat.
1828G. W. Bridges Ann. Jamaica II. xiii. 130 Culex pipiens, the *mosquito gnat.
1709J. Lawson New Voyage to Carolina 144 East-India Bats or *Musqueto Hawks, are the Bigness of a Cuckoo, and much of the same colour. 1737J. Brickell Nat. Hist. N. Carolina 163 The Muskeetoe-Hawks, are Insects, so called, from their continually hunting after Muskeetoes, and killing and eating them. 1782P. H. Bruce Mem. 424 Musketo hawks. 1832J. Pickering Inquiries of Emigrant 59 Thousands of long large flies, similar to the English dragon fly, but a little smaller, are flying about the fields; they are called musquito hawks, on account of their killing and living on those insects. 1851Southern Planter (Richmond, Va.) July 195/2 Unlike the..mosquito hawk of the South [the joint worm] does not make its appearance suddenly. 1866W. R. King Sportsman & Naturalist in Canada 108 The somewhat rare swallow-tail or musquito-hawk,..soaring in pursuit of insects. 1894Newton Dict. Birds 593 Mosquito-hawk, a name in America for the species of Chordiles (Nightjar). 1938G. Cash I like Brit. Columbia 187 A mosquito hawk zoomed belatedly overhead. 1967E. B. Nickerson Kayaks to Arctic ix. 77 We learned..that in my father's childhood they [sc. dragon-flies] had been called ‘mosquito hawks’.
1745London Mag. Nov. 551/2 To scorn Umbrellas and *Musketto-Nets, as Jamaican and Carolinean Effeminacies. 1764Smollett Trav. xxiii. (1766) I. 354 Instead of curtains, there is a..mosquito net, made of a kind of gauze. 1867M. E. Herbert Cradle Lands i. 3 One comfort only was wanting in this hotel, and that was mosquito-nets. 1969I. Kemp Brit. G.I. in Vietnam viii. 160 The unexpected comforts of a camp bed, an air mattress, and a mosquito net. 1974P. Dickinson Poison Oracle iv. 111 He had packed the medicines, clothes, mosquito net, compass.
1840J. B. Fraser Trav. Koordistan, etc. I. viii. 221 The bed being without curtains or *mosquito netting. 1885Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 829/2 A piece of..mosquito-netting made into a bag.
1949M. Mead Male & Female viii. 171 We asked Tomi..to.. stop up the crevices between the mosquito wire and the..floor of our *mosquito-room.
1923World Almanac (N.Y.) 422 Nicknames of the States... N.J. ‘Jersey Blues’, ‘Garden’, ‘New Spain’, ‘*Mosquito’. 1930in G. E. Shankle Amer. Nicknames (1937) 376 We get the scornful title, the Mosquito State, because we seem to have our share of these industrious and bloodthirsty insects.
1792Scott Let. 10 Sept. (1932) I. 22 Wading through the mosses upon this errand, accoutred with the long gun, a jacket, *mosquito trowsers, and a rough cap. 1828Mrs. B. Hall Let. 27 Apr. in Aristocratic Journey (1931) 261 We got her a pair of mosquito trowsers.
1949*Mosquito wire [see mosquito room].
c. mosquito boat, (a) (see quot. 1914); (b) a motor-torpedo boat; mosquito craft, small light vessels adapted for rapid manœuvring. So mosquito fleet, a fleet of such vessels; mosquito-built a., said of a light vessel adapted for being rapidly manœuvred.
1804Larwood No Gun Boats 18 Man and victual the Musquitoe Fleet (as Wit in its wantonness has described it). 1824W. Irving T. Trav. II. 242 A little rakish, musquito-built vessell, that could run into all kinds of waters. 1850H. Melville White Jacket II. iii. 12 All the musquito craft of Abba Thule, king of the Pelews. 1884Pall Mall G. 15 Sept. 1/2 Have we a sufficiently numerous mosquito fleet of torpedo boats, steam launches, and picket boats? 1914Dialect Notes IV. 150 Mosquito boat, small river craft carrying light guns. 1940Topeka (Kan.) State Jrnl. 29 Apr. 2 (headline) Trial run for ‘mosquito boat’. 1944in R. W. Zandvoort et al. Wartime Eng. (1957) 158 You always drive a boat; but do not refer to any of them as mosquito craft.
Hence moˈsquitoey, moˈsquitoish adjs., infested with mosquitoes.
1857Thoreau Maine W. (1894) 259 The bank would often be too steep, or else too low and grassy, and therefore mosquitoey. 1880Senior Trav. & Trout in Antipodes 185, I was assured it was unbearably hot, muggy, mosquitoish, rainy, and stormy at Auckland. 1888Lees & Clutterbuck B.C. 1887: Brit. Columbia xxxv. (1892) 382 Golden..looked..not nearly so mosquitoey as when we last saw it.
▪ II. mosquito
variant of mesquita, a mosque. |