DCHP-3

bulldog

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Spelling variants:
bull dog

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

n.

any one of several species of horsefly, usually very large and considered pests as females habitually inflict painful bites and suck blood from humans and livestock. ENTRY IN PROGRESS

Type: 1. Origin — Early Canadian quotations (see 1792 quotation) liken the bulldog to the 'gad fly' in the UK. The OED-3 also mentions the gad-fly, and marks the term American. The first quotation in DARE is from 1893, so it is likely that the term originated in Canada and later was used in the US.
See also Gage-1, s.v. "bulldog2", which is marked "Canadian", ITP Nelson, s.v. "bulldog" (3), which is marked "Canadian", and OED-3, s.v. "bull-dog" (4a), which is described as American".

Quotations

1792
A kind of fly about the size of a bee and not much unlike them in colour but flat and resemble the gad fly of England in this country called bull dogs are the most numerous and troublesome I ever knew them and their bite is as sudden as the sting of a bee.
1892
The large bull-dogs . . . drove the horses about to madness.
1938
A few of the most vicious insects of the north country are the black fly, bulldog fly, mosquito, beetles, no-see'ems, sand fly, deer fly, blow fly--and the darning-needle, or dragon fly, which fights on man's side by eating any or all of the above.
1959
Few farmers chew tobacco, and I doubt if a round dozen in all Western Canada could hit a bulldog fly on the rump of a horse from his plow seat.
1961
But in summer, we do have black flies and bulldogs (horse-flies) which get into our clothes and take bites the size of a pinhead.
1995
Dodging "bull dogs'' (flesh eating flies the size of my thumbs), we pitched camp and ate chili.
2003
They track ducks and their broods through the boggy land, dodging mosquitoes, deer flies and horse flies. They call the latter "bull dogs" because of their toothy bites.