horse fly
1
3.7
- noun
- /hɔrs flaɪ/
:
mosca de los caballos
- To avoid getting bitten, it's best to wear protective clothing outdoors, especially from horse flies.
Examples
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When summer arrives, the buzzing of horse flies becomes a common annoyance in the countryside.
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- Is that a horse fly?
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And what they studied is horse flies and how they actually try to horse flies actually or name that because they surround horses and they try to bite them.
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You've seen a horse-fly.
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The horse fly is notorious for its painful bites on livestock.
Synonyms
3
9.9
A large fly that bites animals and people to drink their blood
3
5.5
A large fly whose females bite horses and other animals to drink blood
1
9.4
A large fly that bites or annoys animals like horses
A large fly like a horsefly that bites animals and drinks their blood
Surface Forms
Morphology
horse + fly
The compound is a straightforward noun–noun formation: combining 'horse' and 'fly' yields a type of fly associated with horses (i.e., a large fly that bites animals). This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the general meaning.
Etymology
Horse fly is named from a simple image: big, fast flies often bite horses and other farm animals to drink their blood. So today horse fly means a large, biting fly that can cause a painful 'bite'.