scorpion fly

British

noun

any of various insects of the family Panorpidae, of the N hemisphere, having a scorpion-like but nonvenomous tail in the males, long antennae, and a beaklike snout: order Mecoptera

"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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Male scorpion flies may risk their lives swiping a dead insect from a spider’s web to offer a female as a nuptial gift.

From National Geographic

We believed that what applies to the scorpion fly also applies to humans.

From Nature

There are evolutionary theorists who describe scorpion flies as rapists, and Nobel laureate economists who insist that affairs of the human heart are best grasped through cost-benefit analysis.

From The Guardian

Mecoptera: long-winged: neuropterous insects with similar, large, unfolded wings; mouth mandibulate, prolonged into a beak: head free; thorax agglutinated; transformations complete: the scorpion flies or Panorpidae.

From Project Gutenberg

We were biologists, and we knew that symmetrical scorpion flies attract more mates than asymmetrical ones.

From Nature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023