"blind-fly" meaning in English

See blind-fly in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: blind-flies [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} blind-fly (countable and uncountable, plural blind-flies)
  1. (countable) Any of several medium-sized blood-sucking flies, of the family Tabanidae, usually species in the genus Haematopota. Tags: countable Categories (lifeform): Horseflies Synonyms (fly of family Tabanidae): cleg, horse-fly
    Sense id: en-blind-fly-en-noun-pEauMnWa Disambiguation of Horseflies: 45 55 Disambiguation of 'fly of family Tabanidae': 89 11
  2. (uncountable) The game of blind man's buff Tags: uncountable Categories (lifeform): Horseflies, Parasites
    Sense id: en-blind-fly-en-noun-M0R4XPk2 Disambiguation of Horseflies: 45 55 Disambiguation of Parasites: 41 59 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 66 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 41 59 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 38 62
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: blindfly, blind fly

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for blind-fly meaning in English (3.9kB)

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    {
      "form": "blind-flies",
      "tags": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "lifeform",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Horseflies",
          "orig": "en:Horseflies",
          "parents": [
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            "Insects",
            "Arthropods",
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            "All topics",
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            "Fundamental",
            "Nature"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1898, Arthur Dunley-Owen, The Lancet: The Blind Fly and the locust in the evolution of the malaria parasite",
          "text": "I caught a number of that species of Tabanidae which has a large, grey-striped body, greenish-yellow eyes, and entirely transparent wings. This is locally termed the \"blind fly\" and it feeds on blood.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961 June 8, Robert Barrass, New Scientist: The Visual Sense in \"Blind-Flies\"",
          "text": "While the bite of a mosquito or a tsetse fly may not be noticed, the bite of a blind-fly is very painful. The female takes about five minutes to gorge itself with blood and when it leaves the host animal its abdomen is so distended that it must fly with difficulty. Once it has started to probe it can be killed or picked off with the fingers quite easily. It is perhaps because of this that the name blind fly came to be used for a fly which has large eyes and is by no means blind.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any of several medium-sized blood-sucking flies, of the family Tabanidae, usually species in the genus Haematopota."
      ],
      "id": "en-blind-fly-en-noun-pEauMnWa",
      "links": [
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(countable) Any of several medium-sized blood-sucking flies, of the family Tabanidae, usually species in the genus Haematopota."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "89 11",
          "sense": "fly of family Tabanidae",
          "word": "cleg"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "89 11",
          "sense": "fly of family Tabanidae",
          "word": "horse-fly"
        }
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      "tags": [
        "countable"
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          "_dis": "41 59",
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          "name": "Parasites",
          "orig": "en:Parasites",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Possibly derived from the Italian name of the game: Mosca cieca, which literally means \"blind fly\"."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, William Crooke, Natives of Northern India",
          "text": "Bengalis, like the Italians, call the name \"Kana Machi, \"Blind Fly\", and, as with us, the blind man has to touch one of the players sitting round, and after feeling him, has to state his name.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The game of blind man's buff"
      ],
      "id": "en-blind-fly-en-noun-M0R4XPk2",
      "links": [
        [
          "blind man's buff",
          "blind man's buff"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncountable) The game of blind man's buff"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "blindfly"
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      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "blind fly"
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  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "blind fly"
  ],
  "word": "blind-fly"
}
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          "ref": "1898, Arthur Dunley-Owen, The Lancet: The Blind Fly and the locust in the evolution of the malaria parasite",
          "text": "I caught a number of that species of Tabanidae which has a large, grey-striped body, greenish-yellow eyes, and entirely transparent wings. This is locally termed the \"blind fly\" and it feeds on blood.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961 June 8, Robert Barrass, New Scientist: The Visual Sense in \"Blind-Flies\"",
          "text": "While the bite of a mosquito or a tsetse fly may not be noticed, the bite of a blind-fly is very painful. The female takes about five minutes to gorge itself with blood and when it leaves the host animal its abdomen is so distended that it must fly with difficulty. Once it has started to probe it can be killed or picked off with the fingers quite easily. It is perhaps because of this that the name blind fly came to be used for a fly which has large eyes and is by no means blind.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "(countable) Any of several medium-sized blood-sucking flies, of the family Tabanidae, usually species in the genus Haematopota."
      ],
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        "countable"
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        },
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          "text": "Bengalis, like the Italians, call the name \"Kana Machi, \"Blind Fly\", and, as with us, the blind man has to touch one of the players sitting round, and after feeling him, has to state his name.",
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      ],
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        "(uncountable) The game of blind man's buff"
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    {
      "sense": "fly of family Tabanidae",
      "word": "cleg"
    },
    {
      "sense": "fly of family Tabanidae",
      "word": "horse-fly"
    },
    {
      "word": "blindfly"
    },
    {
      "word": "blind fly"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "blind fly"
  ],
  "word": "blind-fly"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.