Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various small insects, such as a gall midge, a gall wasp, or certain flies in the family Tephritidae, whose larvae cause the formation of galls in plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An insect which occasions galls on plants by puncturing them; especially, a hymenopter of the group Gallicolæ or Diplolepariæ, as a cynipid. See gall, and cut under Cynips.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) An insect that deposits its eggs in plants, and occasions galls, esp. any small hymenopteran of the genus Cynips and allied genera. See Illust. of gall.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of various flies which produce galls.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun small solitary wasp that produces galls on oaks and other plants
  • noun fragile mosquito-like flies that produce galls on plants
  • noun any of various insects that deposit their eggs in plants causing galls in which the larvae feed

Etymologies

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