different between mosquito vs maggot

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *m?s- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), dialectal Swedish mausa (“mosquito”), Lithuanian mus? (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge.

Pronunciation

• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /m??ski.to?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /m?s?ki?.t??/
• Rhymes: -i?t??

Noun

mosquito (plural mosquitos or mosquitoes)

1. 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 and yellow fever.

Hypernyms

• gnat
• midge

Derived terms

Related terms

• Diminutive: mossie/mozzie (Australia, UK) or skeeter (US)

Translations

Verb

mosquito (third-person singular simple present mosquitos, present participle mosquitoing, simple past and past participle mosquitoed)

1. To fly close to the ground, seemingly without a course.

Galician

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Italian

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquiti)

1. mosquito

Old Spanish

Etymology

From mosca, mosco (“fly”) +? -ito.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [mos?ki.to]

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. Diminutive of mosca; a mosquito.
   • c. 1250, Alfonso X, Lapidario, f. 107v:

     […] ?era aguardado del danno delos mo?quitos. ¬ de todas maneras de mo?cas que seá pozonadas o mordedores. / Et e?to es mas de?cendiédo ?obre?ta piedra la útud de fi?a de mo?q?to, o de alguna de?tas otras mo?cas que dixiemos.

     […] he will be kept from the harm of mosquitos and all manners of flies that are venomous or that bite. And this will happen more when over this stone descends the virtue of the figure of the mosquito, or that of another one of the flies we mentioned.

Descendants

• Spanish: mosquito
  • ? English: mosquito

Portuguese

Etymology

From mosca +? -ito.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mu?.?ki.t?/, /mus.?ki.t?/

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Spanish

Etymology

mosca +? -ito (diminutive suffix), or Old Spanish moquito. Cognate with Sicilian muschitta (“midge”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mos?kito/, [mos?ki.t?o]

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

   Synonyms: zancudo, (Mexico) moyote

2. gnat
3. (Mexico, colloquial) trimmer
4. Diminutive of mosco, small fly

Derived terms

• mosquitero
• mosquito simúlido
• mosquito tigre

See also

• jején m

English

Etymology

From Middle English magot, magotte, probably Anglo-Norman alteration of maddock (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Frankish *maþ?, from common Proto-Germanic *maþô, from the Proto-Indo-European root *mat, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made +? -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask.

The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in his or her brain.

Pronunciation

• enPR: m?g'?t, IPA^(key): /?mæ??t/

Noun

maggot (plural maggots)

1. A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipterous insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter. [from 15th c.]
2. (derogatory) A worthless person. [from 17th c.]

   Drop and give me fifty, maggot.

3. (now archaic, regional) A whimsy or fancy. [from 17th c.]
   • 1620, John Fletcher, Women Pleased, III.iv.

     Are you not mad, my friend? What time o' th' moon is't? / Have not you maggots in your brain?

   • 1778, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin 2001, p. 100:

     ‘I am ashamed of him! how can he think of humouring you in such maggots!’
4. (slang) A fan of the American metal band Slipknot.

Synonyms

• (soft legless larva): grub

Derived terms

Related terms

• mawk
• mawkish

Translations