Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various mosquitoes of the genus Culex, which includes the common house mosquito (C. pipiens) and species that spread diseases such as West Nile virus.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The typical genus of the family Culicidœ, or gnats. A common species is C. pipiens. See gnat, mosquito.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A genus of mosquitoes of the family Culicidae, to which most of the North American species belong. Some members of this genus are exceedingly annoying, as Culex sollicitans, which breeds in enormous numbers in the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast, and Culex pipiens, the common house mosquito, breeding very widely in the fresh waters of North America. (For characters distinguishing these from the malaria mosquitoes, see anopheles, above). The yellow-fever mosquito is now placed in another genus, Stegomyia.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology Any of various mosquitoes of the genus Culex, some of which carry disease

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun type genus of the Culicidae: widespread genus of mosquitoes distinguished by holding the body parallel to the resting surface

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, gnat.]

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Examples

  • And at the last when Barnabas came to Rome preaching the faith of Jesu Christ, the philosophers mocked him as he had been mad or out of his wits, and, as some say, Clement was the first philosopher that mocked him and despised his predication, and in scorn put to him this question, saying: What is the cause that culex, which is a little beast, hath six feet and two wings, and an elephant which is a great beast hath but four feet and no wings?

    The Golden Legend, vol. 6 1230-1298 1900

  • The goal of this abatement crew near Chicago is to prevent larvae from growing into adult mosquitoes, specifically the culex pipians, the common carrier of West Nile virus that infected more than 4,000 people in the U.S. last year.

    CNN Transcript Jul 8, 2003 2003

  • Nothing could have seemed less useful than the study of mosquitoes, the differentiation of the different species, their mode of life, etc., and yet without this knowledge discoveries so beneficial and of such far-reaching importance to the whole human race as that of the cause and mode of transmission of malaria and yellow fever would have been impossible; for it could easily have been shown that the ordinary _culex_ mosquito played no rôle.

    Disease and Its Causes William Thomas Councilman

  • (_Synonym: _ Gnat; Mosquito.) #Describe the cutaneous disturbance produced by the culex.

    Essentials of Diseases of the Skin Including the Syphilodermata Arranged in the Form of Questions and Answers Prepared Especially for Students of Medicine Henry Weightman Stelwagon 1886

  • In going up one of the great rivers of America, it is observed, that the appearance of a new species of culex denotes the proximity of a new stream flowing in.

    Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America 1851

  • This difference between mosquito (little fly, simulium) and zancudo (gnat, culex) exists in all the Spanish colonies.

    Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America 1851

  • Politian had used the freedom of a friend, and pleasantly, in the form of a Latin epigram, corrected the mistake of Scala in making the _culex_ (an insect too well-known on the banks of the Arno) of the inferior or feminine gender.

    Romola George Eliot 1849

  • And Tito, who had just been looking into the ` Miscellanea, 'found so much to say that was agreeable to the secretary -- he would have done so from the mere disposition to please, without further motive -- that he showed himself quite worthy to be made a judge in the notable correspondence concerning the _culex_.

    Romola George Eliot 1849

  • Scala, but rather to instruct him; said epigram containing a lively conceit about Venus, Cupid, and the _culex_, of a kind much tasted at that period, founded partly on the zoological fact that the gnat, like

    Romola George Eliot 1849

  • The interview could hardly have ended more auspiciously for Tito, and as he walked out at the Porta Pinti that he might laugh a little at his ease over the affair of the _culex_, he felt that fortune could hardly mean to turn her back on him again at present, since she had taken him by the hand in this decided way.

    Romola George Eliot 1849

Comments

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  • Genus of mosquito

    December 11, 2008

  • Ah yes--the genus that causes yellow fever, no? *reaching way back into memory*

    December 12, 2008

  • I think they spread it rather than cause it, technically speaking.

    December 12, 2008