midge

Definition of midge

4 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all belonging to the order Diptera.

“"I am being eaten alive!" cried Pippin. "Midgewater! There are more midges than water!"”
“Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.”

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noun

Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all belonging to the order Diptera.

“"I am being eaten alive!" cried Pippin. "Midgewater! There are more midges than water!"”
“Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.”
(Northern-England, Scotland)A small, short or insignificant person.
Any bait or lure designed to resemble a midge.

name

A female given name of rare usage, variant of Madge.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle English mydge, migge, from Old English mygg, myċġ (“midge, gnat”), from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mū- (“fly, midge”), *mu-, *mew-. The dialectal sense of…

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From Middle English mydge, migge, from Old English mygg, myċġ (“midge, gnat”), from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mū- (“fly, midge”), *mu-, *mew-. The dialectal sense of "short person" was originally figurative, and gave rise to midget (“short person”) via the diminutive suffix -et, which has since become part of standard English with that meaning; this has caused midge to undergo rebracketing as a clipping of midget. Cognates * Scots mige (“midge”) * Saterland Frisian Määge (“gnat, mosquito”) * West Frisian mich (“fly, mosquito”) * West Flemish meezje (“midge, mosquito”) * Dutch mug (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * German Low German Mügge (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * German Mücke (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * Swedish mygg, mygga (“midge, gnat, mosquito”) * Icelandic mý (“midge, gnat, fly”) The Proto-Indo-European root was also the source of * Latin musca * Ancient Greek μυῖα (muîa) * Russian му́ха (múxa) * Latvian muša * Czech muchnička * Albanian mizë * Armenian մուն (mun)

Words you can make from midge

21 playable · top: DIME (7 pts)

Best play dime 7 points

4-letter words

2 words

3-letter words

11 words

2-letter words

7 words

Hooks

3 extensions · 1 front · 2 back

A single letter you can add to midge to make another valid word.

Front

SMIDGE 10 pts