midge

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English migge, also mydge,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English mycg, also mygg and mycge,^[5][3][6][2] from Proto-West Germanic *muggju,^[1] from Proto-Germanic *mugjō.^[1][5][3][7] It is cognate with Old Saxon muggia, Middle Dutch mugghe (now Dutch mug), Old High German mucca (now German Mücke), Swedish mygga, Danish myg and Old Norse mý.^{[5][3][2][8][9]} The OED thinks the Germanic words probably come from several distinct bases.^[8] Beyond Germanic the links are less firm: Etymonline finds no certain cognates, unless doubtful forms are counted from Armenian and Albanian, both meaning gnat;^[5] Klein and Partridge start from an imitative root, Proto-Indo-European *mu- (“to buzz”), with Albanian mizë (“gnat”), and set beside it the Proto-Indo-European *mus- of Ancient Greek μυῖα (muîa, “fly”) and Latin musca (“fly”);^[2][10] Barnhart treats these as cognates from that second root;^[3] and the OED says only that they are perhaps ultimately related.^[8] The single Old English form mucka, in a German manuscript of about 1100, is probably influenced by the word in Old High German.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small insect like a gnat: in the early Old English Corpus Glossary,^[8] where Bosworth–Toller finds mycg and mygg glossing Latin culex.^[6] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 700,^[3] and Dictionary.com says before 900.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The name was always loose: Etymonline calls it a popular name for a tiny two-winged fly, used for many small insects without distinction.^[5] Rolle's Psalter of about 1340 glosses it as smaller than a fly,^[4] and Johnson (1755) simply defined it as a gnat.^[12] Entomologists narrowed it to certain families of flies,^[8][13] while compounds with a plant name, for flies whose larvae damage crops, are recorded from 1839.^[8] The sense "small or insignificant person", chiefly in Scotland and northern England, is figurative:^[1][8] 1757, in Smollett, in the OED,^[8] and 1796 in Etymonline.^[5] Its diminutive midget, with -et, is a 19th-century word.^[9][10][2] Anglers have used the name for an artificial fly since 1799,^[8] and for a time it also meant the young of various fish (1832–95) and a small one-horse cab (1865–96).^[8] Dialects made much of its smallness: in Lancashire midge-clippings was a figurative word for anything very small and delicate.^[14]

Timeline

• Old English – a small gnat-like insect, as mycg and mygg.^[8][3][6]
• c. 1340 – the Middle English form mydge, in Rolle's Psalter.^[3][4]
• 1757 – a small or insignificant person.^[8] Etymonline dates this sense to 1796.^[5]
• 1799 – in angling, an artificial fly like a midge.^[8]
• 1832 – the young of various fish (obsolete by 1895).^[8]
• 1839 – with a plant name, a small fly whose larvae are pests of plants.^[8]
• 1865 – a small one-horse cab (obsolete by 1896).^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tiny, fragile two-winged fly like a gnat or mosquito, often found in swarms near water; some kinds give a painful bite: The midges drove the campers indoors at dusk.^[15][13][8]
2. Any of several related small flies, such as the gall midge, whose larvae damage plants.^[15][8]
3. A small or insignificant person or animal, especially a small child; chiefly Scottish and northern English.^[8][15]
4. (angling) An artificial fly made to look like a midge.^[8]

Word family

• midget
• midgy

Related words

• mugwort
• mosquito
• musket
• muscarine

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins