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anopheles.

A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈnɒfɪliːz/Received-Pronunciation/əˈnɑfəliz/General-American
  1. A mosquito of the genus Anopheles, some insects of which transmit various parasites of the genus Plasmodium that are the cause of malaria.

    also · attributive · broadly
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from taxonomic name Anopheles (“genus of mosquitoes”), coined by the German entomologist Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1764–1845), from Ancient Greek ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs, “unprofitable, useless; hurtful, prejudicial”), from ἀν- (an-) (a variant of ᾰ̓- (ă-, prefix forming terms having senses opposite to stems or terms to which it is attached)) + ὄφελος (óphelos, “advantage, benefit, good”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰel-) + -ης (-ēs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of Ophelia

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.