anopheles
/əˈnɑfəliz/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.34 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Analogy with the malaria-carrying mosquito points to the various kinds of anopheles, and perhaps to some species of the ordinary mosquito or culex, as being possible bearers of the disease."
- "[T]he whole business was a silly mistake due to a murderous-mouthed ignorance of the ease with which the same result could have been obtained by inoculation with anopheles vaccine and stegomyia emulsion."
- "They slept again, then woke, and drowsed their way slowly towards the late afternoon when the unexpected fever awoke in him—an onslaught so sudden that the symptoms for her seemed instantly recognisable as a rogue attack of malaria. […] "I brought it back from the desert—they have been planting rice like fools, and now you get anopheles right up to the gates of Alexandria!""
Etymology
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
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₃bʰel-, Anopheles, ἀνωφελής
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈnɑfəliz/
- British English: /əˈnɒfɪliːz/
Inflected Forms
anopheleses (plural)