Cleg

//klɛɡ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A light breeze. dialectal
  2. 2
    large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals wordnet
  3. 3
    A blood-sucking fly of the family Tabanidae; a gadfly, a horsefly. England, Scotland, dialectal

    "Sir Christopher Pack did cleave like a clegg, and was very angry he could not be heard ad infinitum."

Synonyms

All synonyms
horseflyblind flyblind-flycleggdeer flygadfly

Example

More examples

"Sir Christopher Pack did cleave like a clegg, and was very angry he could not be heard ad infinitum."

Etymology

From Middle English clege, from Old Norse kleggi, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *glōgʰ-s (“point”); compare with Norwegian Nynorsk klegg, Ancient Greek γλωχίς (glōkhís, “barb”).

More for "cleg"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.