Other forms: fleas
A flea is a tiny jumping insect that bites and itches. Flea bites, a flea collar, the dog has fleas.
It jumps by storing energy in a springy protein rather than by muscle alone, which is how something that small clears a hundred times its own height. Fleas carried the plague, through rats. A flea market sells second-hand goods, from the French.
1nounfleaA tiny jumping insect that bites.
“The dog kept scratching, so we checked it for fleas.”
flea is an insect.
Old English fleah names the insect, from a Germanic root, possibly connected with flee.
Proto-Indo-European
*plus-
Proto-Germanic
*flauhaz
Proto-West Germanic
*flauh
Old English
flēah
Middle English
fle
English, today
flea
From Middle English fle, from Old English flēah, flēa, from Proto-West Germanic flauh, from Proto-Germanic flauhaz (compare West Frisian flie, Low German Flo, Flö, Dutch vlo, German Floh, Icelandic fló), from pre-Germanic plóukos, plówkos, from or akin to Proto-Indo-European plus- (compare Latin pulex, Sanskrit प्लुषि). The archaic plural fleen is from Middle English fleen, flen, from Old English flēan* (“fleas”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA