méng
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 horsefly
  2. 2 gadfly

Examples

Yī zhī méng dīng le niú de bèi, niú bùtíng de shuǎi wěiba.
A horsefly bit the ox on the back, and it kept flicking its tail.
Mǔ méng xī rén hé shēngchù de xuè.
Female horseflies suck the blood of people and livestock.

Tips

usage
is a large biting fly. The everyday word is niúméng (literally 'ox-fly', the horsefly). Only the female bites mammals for blood; the compound wénméng lumps it with mosquitoes as bloodsucking pests.

Components

radical
chóng
insect; worm
The insect radical marks as a flying bug, the same radical found in mosquito and fly.
phonetic
wáng
to die; to flee (here phonetic)
Right is , an old phonetic that shifted to méng. The fuller traditional form wrote two over ; the modern shape keeps just one insect plus the sound element.

Stroke Order

méng