A very large kind of mosquito.
1801.
| These Gallinippers are a noble breed, | |
| Sent down on earth to buz and feed, | |
| With monstrous paunches, and with wings of lace: | |
| Who toil not for themselves, or earn their food, | |
| But suck the hungry peasant’s blood, | |
| ’Mongst tiny gnats a giant race. | |
The Port Folio, i. 40 (Phila.). |
1810. Many of the largest size [of musquitoes are], called gannipers.—F. Cuming, ‘Sketches of a Tour,’ p. 275 (Pittsburgh).
1818. Smaller flies, from the gallinipper to the moschetto, began to muster.—Sporting Mag., i. 261. (N.E.D.)
1823. A cutter, forming part of an expedition against pirates, “was named the Galley Nipper.”—Missouri Intelligencer, March 18.
1830. In enumerating the delights of Calcutta, I have omitted mentioning moschetoes and sand flies, as we grow as good of both, as can be found there, as well as ‘gallinippers.’—N. Ames, ‘A Mariner’s Sketches,’ p. 55.
1826. Musquitoes abound here. I have just killed a “gallinipper.”—John Randolph to Dr. Brockenbrough, from England, July 16: H. A. Garland, ‘Life,’ ii. 271 (1851).
1836. The editor of the Mobile Advertiser [considers Mr. Bynum’s threat] to make the portly Alderman Barnes walk into an auger-hole as equivalent to the spectacle of a gallinipper packing [pecking] at the Rock of Gibraltar.—Phila. Public Ledger, Aug. 1.
1839. I desire those who come hereafter may bring healing in their wings, and not the appetites and probosces of gallinippers. (Note). Gallinipper is the common name for a large species of moscheto in the West.—Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, House of Repr., Jan. 16: Congressional Globe, p. 375, App.
1840. Speaking of “moschetos” (which you spell in a confoundedly affected manner) did you ever see a gallinipper?—Daily Pennant, St. Louis, Sept. 29.
1844. Had he not given himself assiduously to the study of the “bumbly-bee”—endeavoured to analyze the vocalism of gallinippers, and whined industriously through successive hours?—J. C. Neal, ‘Peter Ploddy,’ &c., p. 8 (Phila.).
1842. The gallinippers of Florida are said to have aided the Seminoles in appalling our armies, and we have of late heard of a prodigious number of bites in all parts of the Union.—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘Forest Life,’ i. 184.
a. 1853. When winter brings gallinippers of a sharper bite than bed-bugs, fleas or mosquitoes, a pipe of the Turkish and a chapter of Job compose a most excellent anodyne.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 195.
1853. Resolutions were passed … denouncing all banks, great and small, from the gallinipper up or down, whichever you please.—Mr. Ficklin of Illinois, House of Repr., Jan. 14: Cong. Globe, p. 304.
1859. This is a great country, and very productive, if you count as “produce” thunder and lightning, hailstorms, mud, crawfish, flies, mosquitoes, and “gallon-nippers.”—Letter from Illinois to the Oregon Argus, Aug. 13.
1866. Such Bores I style Bores “G.,” which stands for Gallinippers.—Charles H. Smith, ‘Bill Arp,’ p. 16. (Italics in the original.)
1888. Our rain-water was so full of gallinippers and pollywogs, that a glass stood by the plate untouched until the sediment and natural history united at the bottom…. [The] banks of mud, all bred mosquitoes, or gallinippers, as the darkies called them.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ pp. 76–7.
