"no-see-um" meaning in English

See no-see-um in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: no-see-ums [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|head=no-see-um}} no-see-um (plural no-see-ums)
  1. (US, chiefly Southern US) Any biting midge (family Ceratopogonidae), small flies (1–4 mm long); sometimes the species Leptoconops torrens in particular. Tags: Southern-US, US Categories (lifeform): Culicomorphs, Parasites Synonyms (Ceratopogonidae): midgie, sand fly, punkie, punky [US]
    Sense id: en-no-see-um-en-noun-D-7V0qv7 Disambiguation of Culicomorphs: 81 19 Disambiguation of Parasites: 81 19 Categories (other): American English, Southern US English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 81 19 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 84 16 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 81 19 Disambiguation of 'Ceratopogonidae': 95 5
  2. Any biting bug or insect that is normally too small to see with an unaided eye.
    Sense id: en-no-see-um-en-noun-4rIyujUB

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "no-see-ums",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "no-see-um"
      },
      "expansion": "no-see-um (plural no-see-ums)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Southern US English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "84 16",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "lifeform",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Culicomorphs",
          "orig": "en:Culicomorphs",
          "parents": [
            "Dipterans",
            "Insects",
            "Arthropods",
            "Animals",
            "Lifeforms",
            "All topics",
            "Life",
            "Fundamental",
            "Nature"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "81 19",
          "kind": "lifeform",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Parasites",
          "orig": "en:Parasites",
          "parents": [
            "Lifeforms",
            "All topics",
            "Life",
            "Fundamental",
            "Nature"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any biting midge (family Ceratopogonidae), small flies (1–4 mm long); sometimes the species Leptoconops torrens in particular."
      ],
      "id": "en-no-see-um-en-noun-D-7V0qv7",
      "links": [
        [
          "biting midge",
          "biting midge"
        ],
        [
          "Ceratopogonidae",
          "Ceratopogonidae#Translingual"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, chiefly Southern US) Any biting midge (family Ceratopogonidae), small flies (1–4 mm long); sometimes the species Leptoconops torrens in particular."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
          "word": "midgie"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
          "word": "sand fly"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
          "word": "punkie"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "punky"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Southern-US",
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995, Beloit Fiction Journal, volume 11, page 37:",
          "text": "Wherever we look up, there suspended against an areola of humming fluorescent white, is a shadowy funnel of tiny flies, bobbing in the air. 'No-See-Um's. This is what one employee calls them.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, William W. Forgey, Wilderness Medicine: Beyond First Aid, page 166:",
          "text": "These two examples of insect life are the scourge of the North Country, or any country in which they may be found. Many local people refer to any small black fly as a “no-see-Um\" but the true bug by that name is indeed very hard to see.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Frank Sargeant, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Boating and Sailing, page 103:",
          "text": "An easy solution is to cover up, because they're not much for getting inside your clothes and they can't bite through even a thin shirt, as mosquitoes can. But it's often too hot in no-see-um country for a lot of clothing.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Undercurrent: (Larkspur, Calif.), volume 15, page 14:",
          "text": "... it's not as widely known as malaria, it can be every bit as painful, tenacious, and dangerous, as some of your fellow Undercurrent readers have told us. Worse yet, the source of the infection is nearly invisible the ubiquitous no-see-um.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, The Boundary Waters Journal, volumes 21-22, page 103:",
          "text": "One of the biggest scams foisted on the camping community is tent manufacturers extolling their 1995 no-see-um bug netting. No-see-um netting may keep out the tiniest of insects, but unfortunately, it also barely lets air through.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any biting bug or insect that is normally too small to see with an unaided eye."
      ],
      "id": "en-no-see-um-en-noun-4rIyujUB",
      "links": [
        [
          "biting",
          "biting"
        ],
        [
          "bug",
          "bug"
        ],
        [
          "insect",
          "insect"
        ],
        [
          "unaided",
          "unaided"
        ],
        [
          "eye",
          "eye"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no-see-um"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Culicomorphs",
    "en:Parasites"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "no-see-ums",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "no-see-um"
      },
      "expansion": "no-see-um (plural no-see-ums)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "Entries using missing taxonomic name (species)",
        "Southern US English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any biting midge (family Ceratopogonidae), small flies (1–4 mm long); sometimes the species Leptoconops torrens in particular."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biting midge",
          "biting midge"
        ],
        [
          "Ceratopogonidae",
          "Ceratopogonidae#Translingual"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, chiefly Southern US) Any biting midge (family Ceratopogonidae), small flies (1–4 mm long); sometimes the species Leptoconops torrens in particular."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Southern-US",
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1995, Beloit Fiction Journal, volume 11, page 37:",
          "text": "Wherever we look up, there suspended against an areola of humming fluorescent white, is a shadowy funnel of tiny flies, bobbing in the air. 'No-See-Um's. This is what one employee calls them.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, William W. Forgey, Wilderness Medicine: Beyond First Aid, page 166:",
          "text": "These two examples of insect life are the scourge of the North Country, or any country in which they may be found. Many local people refer to any small black fly as a “no-see-Um\" but the true bug by that name is indeed very hard to see.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Frank Sargeant, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Boating and Sailing, page 103:",
          "text": "An easy solution is to cover up, because they're not much for getting inside your clothes and they can't bite through even a thin shirt, as mosquitoes can. But it's often too hot in no-see-um country for a lot of clothing.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Undercurrent: (Larkspur, Calif.), volume 15, page 14:",
          "text": "... it's not as widely known as malaria, it can be every bit as painful, tenacious, and dangerous, as some of your fellow Undercurrent readers have told us. Worse yet, the source of the infection is nearly invisible the ubiquitous no-see-um.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, The Boundary Waters Journal, volumes 21-22, page 103:",
          "text": "One of the biggest scams foisted on the camping community is tent manufacturers extolling their 1995 no-see-um bug netting. No-see-um netting may keep out the tiniest of insects, but unfortunately, it also barely lets air through.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Any biting bug or insect that is normally too small to see with an unaided eye."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biting",
          "biting"
        ],
        [
          "bug",
          "bug"
        ],
        [
          "insect",
          "insect"
        ],
        [
          "unaided",
          "unaided"
        ],
        [
          "eye",
          "eye"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
      "word": "midgie"
    },
    {
      "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
      "word": "sand fly"
    },
    {
      "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
      "word": "punkie"
    },
    {
      "sense": "Ceratopogonidae",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "word": "punky"
    }
  ],
  "word": "no-see-um"
}

Download raw JSONL data for no-see-um meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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.