MOSQUITO

[Heb., qeʹrets].

Any of a great variety of two-winged insects having a round head and long, slender, five-jointed legs. Female mosquitoes are equipped with a strong proboscis that enables them to pierce the skin of man and animals, in order to suck their blood. The Hebrew word rendered “mosquito” (NW) appears as a noun only at Jeremiah 46:20, where it is used to represent the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, the enemy to the north that would come against Egypt, the “pretty heifer.”