horsefly

• horse-fly
• horse fly

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

• audio (US)

  (file)

horsefly (plural horseflies)

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