Definitions

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

  • noun South Africa The common name for various species of sparrow, especially Passer melanurus.
  • noun UK, Australia, New Zealand, colloquial A mosquito.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Afrikaans, from Dutch mus ("a sparrow").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Diminutive formed from mosquito.

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Examples

  • He flung himself down among the rank gray grass and heather, while the moor cock called to his mate in an agony of pleading passion, the lapwing crooned upon a tuft of grass as she prepared a place for her eggs, the whaup wheepled and twirled and cried in eerie alarm, the plover sighed to a low white cloud wandering past; while the snipe and the lark, the "mossie," the heather lintie, and the wandering, sighing winds among the reeds and rushes of the swampy moss, all added their notes to soothe and satisfy the little wounded spirit lying there on the soft moorland.

    The Underworld The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner James C. Welsh

  • Having lit the smoky anti mossie candle Adrian sat back gingerly on a wobbly plastic chair and used the clipper lighter to lever the top off the long frosty green bottle of Czech pilsner with a pop and put his boots up on a wooden cable spool that served as table.

    Cheeseburger Gothic » Small Pepsi challenge. 2009

  • Only an Aussie could manage to make the lowly blood sucking mosquito sound appealing by calling it a mossie.

    Happy Australia Day! Brilynn 2007

  • Only an Aussie could manage to make the lowly blood sucking mosquito sound appealing by calling it a mossie.

    Archive 2007-01-01 Brilynn 2007

  • Or where the _Crystal Nymph_ a _mossie Bason_ fill:

    Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) Samuel Wesley

  • Gastro and mossie-diseases threaten health, expert warns FLOODWATERS which have already claimed the lives of ten people in Queensland pose ongoing health risks in the form of gastro outbreaks, an expert has warned.

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • Chatnesse in Lancashire (says Camden) the low mossie ground was no very long time since, carried away by an impetuous flood, and in that place now lies a low irriguous vale, where many prostrate trees have been digged out: And from another I receive, that in the moors of

    Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees John Evelyn 1663

  • In the mean time, concerning this mossie-wood (as they usually term it, because, for the most part, dug-up in mossie and moory-bogs where they cut for turff) it is highly probable

    Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees John Evelyn 1663

  • Haseling-field in Cambridge-shire, Haselmeer in Surrey, and other places; but more plentifully, if the ground be somewhat moist, dankish and mossie, as in the fresher bottoms, and sides of hills, hoults, and in hedge-rows.

    Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees John Evelyn 1663

  • Didnt have fancy covers or mossie net just a poncho and mossie spray - worked for me I do like the look of the zips and double-layered fabric for a sleeping mat.

    Army Rumour Service 2010

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