Now dial. Forms: 1–2 stút, 4 stoute, 7 stowt(e, 7–9 stut, 9 stoat, 6– stout. [OE. stút, of obscure etymology.] A gad-fly, horse-fly; also applied to a gnat.
Higins (quot. 1585), prob. by mistake, uses it for the candle-fly or moth; Florio follows this, using fire-fly for ‘a fly living in the fire’ (Cooper s.v. Pyrausta).
c. 1000. Ælfric, Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 121/24. Culex, stut.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), V. 159. Þe snowtes of olyfauntes and his hors eren were so ful of gnattes and stoutes and of greet flyes [L. culicibus et ciniphibus] þat þey [etc.].
1585. Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 72/2. Pyrallis,… a candle flie: a stout, or millers soule [printed foule].
1598. Florio, Pirausta, a fire-flye or worme bred and liuing in the fire, and going from it dieth, and flieth into the leame of a candle: some call it a candle-flie, a stout, a miller-fowle, or bishop.
1616. J. Lane, Contn. Sqr.’s T., XI. 383. And blusshinge welkin fell with stowtes to playe at novum.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes, 62. Musketos, who bite and sting worse then the Gnats and Stouts, that sting Cattle in England.
1666. Merrett, Pinax, 199. Tabanides, a Burrel-fly, stout, Brees, Clog or Cling.
1674–91. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, A Stut: a Gnat: Somerset.
1852. Berks Gloss., Stout, a sharp stinging fly.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 199. A boy armed with a spray of ash, with which he flicks off the stoats that would otherwise drive the animals frantic.
1898. Miss Yonge, J. Keble’s Parishes, xvi. 193. The large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a hornet, which lays eggs under the skin of cows.
attrib. a. 1887. Jefferies, Field & Hedgerow (1889), 229. The peculiar low whir of the stoat-fly.
b. Newfoundland. (See quot.)
1903. A. C. P. Haggard, Sporting Yarns, 205. The huge ‘stouts,’ a gadfly of great biting power, used to attack my head and neck terribly. Ibid. (1905), Bond of Sympathy, 60. A … ferocious insect, thicker than, and about the size of a hornet, which it resembles in being barred with black and yellow. This formidable insect, the Newfoundlanders call the Stout.
