🪰 A large fly 🕷️ A long-legged spider

daddy longlegs

1 3.6

A large fly with very long legs that looks like a mosquito but does not bite

noun
/ˈdædi ˈlɔŋˌlɛɡz/

: mosquito de patas largas

Many people mistake a daddy longlegs for a mosquito because of its long legs and slender body.

Examples

And daddy longlegs are good bugs.

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)
Daddy longlegs are good.

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)
Is there a daddy longlegs ad council that feeds out this positive information?

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)
A daddy longlegs.

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)
The daddy longlegs flew into the room, resembling a large mosquito but without the ability to bite.
While walking through the garden, I noticed a daddy longlegs resting on a leaf.

Synonyms

crane fly

vsdaddy longlegs

5.6

A long thin fly with very long legs that looks like a large mosquito but does not bite

is the alternate common name for the same insect

Tipulidae

vsdaddy longlegs

Specialized

9.9

Large insects with very long legs that look like giant mosquitoes but do not bite

refers to one species rather than the whole family

How Big

dragonfly

15 1.4

daddy longlegs

1 3.6

mosquito

70 1.0

Surface Forms

daddy longlegs singular

daddy longlegs plural

Morphology

daddy + longlegs

The compound literally combines 'daddy' + 'longlegs' to describe a creature characterized by very long legs; a B1 learner who knows 'daddy', 'long' and 'legs' would reasonably infer it refers to an animal with notably long thin legs. This is a descriptive, non-idiomatic name rather than a metaphorical or culture-specific idiom, so the meaning is compositionally derivable from its parts.

Etymology

Daddy longlegs may come from a simple picture: people saw a large, mosquito-like fly with a tiny body and very long, dangling legs and thought of a little daddy with long legs. So today the name refers to that harmless, long-legged flying insect.