noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Any of several medium to large flies, of the family Tabanidae, that suck the blood of mammals (not to be confused with Stomoxys calcitrans, the stable fly, or dog fly).

   "It was not a horsefly and it was not a deerfly; it was bigger than either."

2. 2
   large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals wordnet
3. 3
   winged fly parasitic on horses wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

clegbreezeflyclegcleggforest flygadfly

Example

More examples

"It was not a horsefly and it was not a deerfly; it was bigger than either."

Etymology

From Middle English horse fliȝe, equivalent to horse + fly.

Related phrases

stable fly

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