- Cities and buildings
- Fields, plains and deserts
- Forests
- Hills and mountains
- Islands and promontories
- Lands, realms and regions
- Rivers and lakes
- Seas and oceans
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Species
Flies of the suborder Nematocera
Pronunciation
na'ts
Meaning
From Old English gnæt, ultimately thought to mean simply 'biting insect'
Other names
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GnatsBothersome flying insectsTiny and generally harmless flies, commonly seen swarming into large clouds. Midges are often categorised as a kind of gnat, and these were found in enormous numbers in the marshlands of Middle-earth. They were so numerous in the wetlands eastward of Bree that those marshes became known as 'Midgewater'. We have fewer direct references to gnats by name, but they were sufficiently common to be spoken of in a proverbial sense. When Frodo and Sam found themselves trapped in Shelob's Lair on the borders of Mordor, Sam summed up their situation as 'gnats in a net'.1 Notes
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