sandfly

[ sand-flahy ]

noun,plural sand·flies.
  1. any of several small, bloodsucking, dipterous insects of the family Psychodidae that are vectors of several diseases of humans.

  2. any of several other small, bloodsucking, dipterous insects, as one of the family Heleidae or Simuliidae.

Origin of sandfly

1
First recorded in 1675–85; sand + fly1

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use sandfly in a sentence

  • Another sickness of the hot season which now began to claim less victims was sand-fly fever.

    War in the Garden of Eden | Kermit Roosevelt
  • Mun Bun and Margy dug also, but, though they made a lot of sand fly, they did not always dig in the same place.

  • The haggard eye might, perhaps, be ascribed to the dreaded presence of my old friend of the Rocky Mountains, the brulot sand-fly.

    Greater Britain | Charles Wentworth Dilke
  • The overjoyed fellow kept it up for several minutes, making the cold, moist sand fly in every direction.

    In the Pecos Country | Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
  • I swung my arms round, and made the sand fly with my feet, for I was just as mad as anything.

    The William Henry Letters | Abby Morton Diaz

British Dictionary definitions for sandfly

sandfly

/ (ˈsændˌflaɪ) /


nounplural -flies
  1. any of various small mothlike dipterous flies of the genus Phlebotomus and related genera: the bloodsucking females transmit diseases including leishmaniasis: family Psychodidae

  2. any of various similar and related flies

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012