Definitions

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

  • noun Any of numerous large biting tabanid flies, the females of which feed on the blood of various mammals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hexachætous dipterous insect, as Tabanus bovinus and other species of the family Tabanidæ, of which the females have a piercing proboscis, and are extremely annoying to horses and cattle. Also called breeze, breeze-fly, and gadfly. See cuts under breeze and gadfly.
  • noun A pupiparous dipterous insect of the family Hippoboscidæ; a forest-fly or tick-fly. Also called horse-tick.
  • noun A dichætous dipterous insect of the family Œstridæ; a true bot-fly, as the horse-bot, Gasterophilus equi. See cut under bot-fly.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any dipterous fly of the family Tabanidæ, that stings horses, and sucks their blood.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The horse tick or forest fly (Hippobosca).

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

  • noun Any of several medium- to large flies, of the family Tabanidae, that suck the blood of mammals (not to be confused with Stomoxys calcitrans, the stable fly, or dog fly).

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

  • noun large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals
  • noun large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals
  • noun winged fly parasitic on horses

Etymologies

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