From Spanish, literally 'little fly' — the deadliest animal in human history named with a suffix meaning 'small.'
A slender long-legged fly with aquatic larvae, the female of which punctures the skin to suck blood, often transmitting diseases such as malaria and dengue.
From Spanish and Portuguese mosquito, a diminutive of mosca (fly, small flying insect), from Latin musca (fly). Musca derives from PIE *mus- (fly, gnat), cognate with Greek myia (fly), Old Church Slavonic mucha (fly), Lithuanian muse (fly), and Old English mycg (midge). The diminutive suffix -ito is Spanish (equivalent to Latin -ulus), making
'Mosquito' means 'little fly' in Spanish. But the diminutive is darkly ironic: this 'little fly' has killed more humans than any other animal in history — an estimated half of all humans who have ever lived may have died of mosquito-borne malaria. The most dangerous creature on earth is named with a diminutive suffix suggesting something small and harmless.