gnat

/næt/

/næt/

Other forms: gnats

Those tiny black insects swarming around your head just as the sun goes down are probably gnats, very small flies that are extremely annoying but usually don't bite.

If those little flying creatures bite you, they're most likely mosquitoes. If they just irritate you, landing on your face and creating a cloud around your head? They're gnats. Although the word comes from a Germanic root related to gnaw and meaning "biting insect," the truth is most gnats just want to fly around, eat plants, and mate. Occasionally they're attracted to the fluids in your eyes, which means you'll have to swat them away.

Definitions of gnat

1. noun

   any of various small biting flies: midges; biting midges; black flies; sand flies
   types:

   biting midge, no-see-um, punkey, punkie, punky

   minute two-winged insect that sucks the blood of mammals and birds and other insects

   midge

   minute two-winged mosquito-like fly lacking biting mouthparts; appear in dancing swarms especially near water

   psychodid

   a fly of the family Psychodidae

   Phlebotomus papatasii, sand fly, sandfly

   any of various small dipterous flies; bloodsucking females can transmit sandfly fever and leishmaniasis

   black fly, blackfly, buffalo gnat

   small blackish stout-bodied biting fly having aquatic larvae; sucks the blood of birds as well as humans and other mammals

   type of:

   dipteran, dipteron, dipterous insect, two-winged insects

   insects having usually a single pair of functional wings (anterior pair) with the posterior pair reduced to small knobbed structures and mouth parts adapted for sucking or lapping or piercing
2. noun

   (British usage) mosquito
   type of:

   mosquito

   two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals