Word.ws English Dictionary

anopheles

Syllables: an·o·phel·es/əˈnɒfɪliːz/US/əˈnɑfəliz/

anopheles noun: a mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.

anopheles: a mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus...
Image: Owen Strickland, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

anopheles (plural anopheles or anopheleses)

  1. (also, attributive, broadly) A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.
    • Analogy with the malaria-carrying mosquito points to the various kinds of anopheles, and perhaps to some species of the ordinary mosquito or culex, as being possible bearers of the disease.1901 May 24, H[erbert] Watkins-Pitchford, “Horse-sickness Investigations (Continued)”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume IV, number 6, Maritzburg: The Times Printing and...
    • [T]he whole business was a silly mistake due to a murderous-mouthed ignorance of the ease with which the same result could have been obtained by inoculation with anopheles vaccine and stegomyia emulsion.1915 July 10, G[eorge] Bernard Shaw, “Doctors’ Delusions. Sanitation versus Inoculation.”, in Doctors’ Delusions, Crude Criminology, and Sham Education, Standard edition, London: Constable and...

anopheles meaning in Tamil

anopheles in Tamil

அனாஃபிலிஸ் கொசு, கொசுவகை

Forms of anopheles

pluralanopheles
pluralanopheleses

Plural of anopheles: anopheles or anopheleses

Origin of anopheles

Borrowed from taxonomic name Anopheles (“genus of mosquitoes”), coined by the German entomologist Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1764–1845), from Ancient Greek ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs, “unprofitable, useless; hurtful, prejudicial”), from ἀν- (an-) (a variant of ᾰ̓- (ă-, prefix forming terms having senses opposite to stems or terms to which it is attached)) + ὄφελος (óphelos, “advantage, benefit, good”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰel-) + -ης (-ēs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of Ophelia

Words formed from anopheles

Questions about anopheles

What does anopheles mean?
Anopheles means a mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.
What is anopheles in Tamil?
Anopheles in Tamil is அனாஃபிலிஸ் கொசு, கொசுவகை. See Anopheles meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is anopheles?
Anopheles is a noun.
How do you pronounce anopheles?
Anopheles is pronounced /əˈnɒfɪliːz/ (UK).
What is the plural of anopheles?
The plural of anopheles is anopheles.

Words near anopheles in the dictionary

  1. anoon
  2. Anoop
  3. anoopsia
  4. anoperineal
  5. anophelene
  6. anopheles
  7. anophelicide
  8. anophelin
  9. anopheline
  10. anophelines
  11. anophelism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anopheles (page history and authors); anopheles (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-anopheles.wav.

Cite this entry: “anopheles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anopheles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.