horsefly

• horse-fly
• horse fly

From Middle English horse fliȝe, equivalent to horse +‎ fly.

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1. Any of several medium to large flies, of the family Tabanidae, that suck the blood of mammals (not to be confused with Stomoxys calcitrans, the stable fly, or dog fly).
   • 2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 36:

     It was not a horsefly and it was not a deerfly; it was bigger than either.

• (fly of family Tabanidae): cleg (dialectal), breezefly, gadfly, stoat-fly, stout

• (individual species or subgroups of the family Tabanidae): deer fly, yellow fly, March fly (Australia), zimb

• floryshe, shore fly