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Glite Dictionary
stonefly

stonefly

1 8.7
A small insect with a flat body whose larvae live under stones in streams and fishermen use as bait
  • noun
  • /ˈstoʊnˌflaɪ/
translation icon : mosca de piedra
  • stonefly nymph
  • stonefly hatches
  • big stonefly

Examples

  • Bunyan Bug, stonefly number two.

    A River Runs Through It (1992)

  • We created a training set of images of 54 taxonomic groups covering most of the stoneflies, caddisflies, and mayflies found in the US Pacific Northwest.

    Academic text (2017)

  • These habitats support many kinds of organisms, from fish and birds to plankton, mussels, worms, and the larvae of such insects as stoneflies and mayflies.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Fishermen often use a stonefly as bait because its larvae are effective at attracting trout.

  • The stonefly larvae hide under rocks and feed on smaller aquatic insects.

  • While river fishing, I noticed a stonefly fluttering over the water, which excited the nearby fish.

Synonyms

stone fly
vsstonefly
  • Specialized
8.9

A winged insect that lives near streams and whose young live under stones in water

is the same meaning but written as one word without a space
plecopteran
vsstonefly
  • Specialized
9.9

An insect with wings and a flat body whose young live in water, often used as bait

is the everyday nontechnical term anglers use for the same insect

Surface Forms

stonefly singular
stoneflies plural

Morphology

stonefly = stone + fly (transparent) = stone + fly

The compound denotes a kind of insect associated with stones (larvae live under stones), so the meaning is directly inferable from 'stone' + 'fly'.

Etymology

Stonefly comes from the two simple words stone and fly, because the young insects live 'under stones' in streams and the adults can 'fly'. So a stonefly is a small stream insect whose larvae are often used as fishing bait and which shows that the water is clean.