HORSE FLY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does horse fly mean? 

• HORSE FLY (noun)
  The noun HORSE FLY has 1 sense:

1. large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals

  Familiarity information: HORSE FLY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HORSE FLY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

cleg; clegg; horse fly; horsefly

Hypernyms ("horse fly" is a kind of...):

gadfly (any of various large flies that annoy livestock)

Holonyms ("horse fly" is a member of...):

family Tabanidae; Tabanidae (horseflies)

 Context examples 

This reduced ability to land on the zebra's coat may be due to stripes disrupting the visual system of the horse flies during their final moments of approach.

(Zebra stripes may 'dazzle' pathogen-packing horse flies, Wikinews)

Results showed the horse flies hovered over both types of animals at roughly the same rate but, over zebras, they did not always slow down fast enough to land successfully.

(Zebra stripes may 'dazzle' pathogen-packing horse flies, Wikinews)

The researchers observed tabanid horse flies around zebras and domestic horses in captive settings and they found the flies had a harder time landing on zebras than on the monochrome coats of the horses.

(Zebra stripes may 'dazzle' pathogen-packing horse flies, Wikinews)