dogfly

English

Etymology

From Middle English dogflye, dogge flie, equivalent to dog +‎ fly, chiefly after post-classical Latin cynomyia and its etymon Ancient Greek κυνάμυια (kunámuia) (in Hellenistic Greek κυνόμυια (kunómuia)).

Noun

dogfly (plural dogflies)

1. A bloodsucking fly, Stomoxys calcitrans; stablefly.
   • 1612, The Ecclesiasticall History of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus, page 196:

     And behoulding a great multitude of the enemies, he wiſhed them no other harme, but only that ſwarmes of gnats and dogflies might be ſent among them, that feeling the ſtinges of thoſe ſmall creatures, they might acknowledg the power of him that aided the Romanes. When this petition was made vnto God, preſently whole cloudes of gnats and dogflies couered the Perſiã army, […].

   • 1961, Annual Report, State Board of Health, State of Florida, 1961, page 3:

     Discussed with Chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Florida Anti-Mosquito Association support of the group for additional funds for the mosquito control program of the State Board of Health and another research laboratory on dogflies.

   • 1969, Wesley Marx, The Frail Ocean, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, pages 63–64:

     Dogflies were pestering the Pensacola beach trade, and beach crews were mobilized to disinfect the clumps of washed-up seaweed in which the dogflies lived.