Word.ws English Dictionary

dogfly

dogfly noun: a bloodsucking fly, Stomoxys calcitrans; stablefly.

Noun

dogfly (plural dogflies)

  1. A bloodsucking fly, Stomoxys calcitrans; stablefly.
    • And behoulding a great multitude of the enemies, he wiſhed them no other harme, but only that ſwarmes of gnats and dogflies might be ſent among them, that feeling the ſtinges of thoſe ſmall creatures, they might acknowledg the power of him that aided the Romanes. When this petition was made vnto...1612, The Ecclesiasticall History of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus, page 196
    • Discussed with Chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Florida Anti-Mosquito Association support of the group for additional funds for the mosquito control program of the State Board of Health and another research laboratory on dogflies.1961, Annual Report, State Board of Health, State of Florida, 1961, page 3

Forms of dogfly

pluraldogflies

Origin of dogfly

From Middle English dogflye, dogge flie, equivalent to dog + fly, chiefly after post-classical Latin cynomyia and its etymon Ancient Greek κυνάμυια (kunámuia) (in Hellenistic Greek κυνόμυια (kunómuia)). Compare Old English hundes lūs.

Questions about dogfly

What does dogfly mean?
Dogfly means a bloodsucking fly, Stomoxys calcitrans; stablefly.
What part of speech is dogfly?
Dogfly is a noun.
What is the plural of dogfly?
The plural of dogfly is dogflies.

Words near dogfly in the dictionary

  1. dogfishing
  2. dogflesh
  3. dogflies
  4. dogfluencer
  5. dogfluencers
  6. dogfly
  7. dogfood
  8. dogfooded
  9. dogfooding
  10. dogfoods
  11. dogfought

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dogfly (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: “dogfly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dogfly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.