Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./US) a mosquito.

1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 60: If the moschetoes don’t illustrate your moral of feelin’ for you, some of these nights, I’m mistaken. Very immoral fellers those ’skeeters.
1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 68: Skeeters, an’ nats, an’ hoss flies.
1868		M.M. Pomeroy Nonsense 24: He was a sick-looking skeeter, and died in three minutes after we saw him, her, or it, as the case maybe.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 273: I’m just settin’ down’ere smokin’ to keep off the skeeters.
1883		J.C. Harris Nights with Uncle Remus 221: De skeeters ’gun ter git monst’us bad.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 8/1: Now comes the witching season of the year when men lay down to yawn, and ‘skeeters’ must be fed. Now do they drink hot blood and do such deeds as juicy new-chums quake to think upon.
1898		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Jan. 2/2: The influx of new blood has caused a ’skeeter ‘rush’ from the humanly uninhabitated back blocks.
1898		Boy’s Own Paper 15 Oct. 34: I ain’t the sort to go and shirk my duty jist for a scratch that wouldn’t hurt a ’skeeter!
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 June 4/8: A ’skeeter-infested retreat, / Malaria-cursed is the inlet.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 370: skeeter, n. Mosquito.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Oct. 16/4: It is a disputed question here whether the skeeter breeds in the running salt water.
1916		R.D. Doughty diary 24 June 🌐 Glorious country this. Either get eaten up by ‘skeetos’ or suffocated in mud and slush.
1919		A. Baer One Was Short 5 Jan. [synd. col.] E-munition worker [...] was attacked and mangled by two mosquitos. The Jersey bulls have a complete description of the two skeeters.
1925		Odum & Johnson Negro and His Songs (1964) 156: Dem skeeters dey callin’ me cousin, / Dem gnats dey call me frien’.
1934		Camperdown Chron. (Vic.) 4 Apr. 3/2: [headline] Skeeters. A doctor in a mosquito-infected district attended an American official.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 101: Well, sir, a big old skeeter come up on de other side of dat tree and bored right thru it and got blood out of my ole man’s back.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 23 June [synd. cartoon strip] The east [...] scorching sand, sunnburn, sin, skeeters [...] and stinkin’ cigarettes.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 373: I brung ye these rag buckits, bugs ’n’ skeeters [...] is gonna make a big land rush f’r this place quick’s we light these here lanterns.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 136: I’ll shoo skeeters that ain’t there.
a.1986		‘Old Zebra Dun’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 82: He started spoutin’ scriptures, spoke of pirates on the seas. / Of the ‘skeeters’ big as buzzards, and the monkeys in the trees.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 213: ‘Skeeters?’ [...] ‘Not too bad.’ It’s the breeze, JoLayne thought. Mosquitoes like hot still nights.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 4 June 13: We’re going to have to kill a heck of a lot of those skeeters.
2018		Manitoba Herald-Times (WI) 21 Sept. A1/3: The skeeters that fed off your face [...] are likely to hang around.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1862		Dollar Wkly Bull. (Maysville, KY) 10 July 1/6: I guess it’s a skeeter bite, it itches like thunder.
1931		A. Bontemps God Sends Sun. 42: Hack hips, piano busts, an’ skeeter legs. You is got shape, Miss Florence.