Word.ws English Dictionary

deerfly

UK/ˈdɪəflʌɪ/

deerfly noun: any of various species of fly which feed on deer, principally in genus Chrysops.

deerfly: any of various species of fly which feed on deer, principally in genus Chrysops
Image: Bruce Marlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

deerfly (plural deerflies)

  1. Any of various species of fly which feed on deer, principally in genus Chrysops.
    • When the sun comes out, it is totally delightful, except for the mosquitoes, and the blackflies, and the deerflies.2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 161
    • The basement was flooded and the couch was growing mildew, so we sat outdoors in the shadows of the trees in a screened tent with deerflies and mosquitoes buzzing outside.2010, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies, Fourth Estate, published 2011, page 149

Forms of deerfly

pluraldeerflies
alternative formdeer fly

Origin of deerfly

From deer + fly.

Questions about deerfly

What does deerfly mean?
Deerfly means any of various species of fly which feed on deer, principally in genus Chrysops.
What part of speech is deerfly?
Deerfly is a noun.
How do you pronounce deerfly?
Deerfly is pronounced /ˈdɪəflʌɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of deerfly?
The plural of deerfly is deerflies.

Words near deerfly in the dictionary

  1. Deerfielders
  2. Deerfieldian
  3. Deerfieldians
  4. deerflesh
  5. deerflies
  6. deerfly
  7. deerfold
  8. deerfolds
  9. deerfood
  10. deerfoot vanilla leaf
  11. deergrass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deerfly (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.

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