smother-flyn.
dialect.
A species of aphis.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > invertebrates > phylum Arthropoda > class Insecta > subclass Pterygota > [noun] > division Exopterygota or Hemimetabola > order Hemiptera > suborder Homoptera > family Aphis
cantharidesa1398
blackfly1652
greenflya1680
green louse1682
green bug1704
collier1742
puceron1744
plant louse1763
aphis1771
leaf louse1774
smother-fly1785
tree-louse1797
ant cow1875
aphid1884
stilt-bug1895
1785 W. Marshall Minutes in Rural Econ. Midland Counties (1790) II. 128 The very ‘black bug’—‘negro’—here provincially ‘smother fly’—with which beans are frequently infested.
1789 G. White Let. in Nat. Hist. Selborne 268 The people..were surprised by a shower of aphides, or smother-flies, which fell in these parts.
1851 Birmingham & Midlands Gardeners' Mag. Dec. 239 The Plum stocks in particular being infested with smother-fly.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1912; most recently modified version published online June 2019).
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