Definition of "dipterous" []

• Of, relating to, or belonging to the Diptera, a large order of insects that includes the true flies and mosquitoes, characterized by a single pair of membranous wings and a pair of club-shaped balancing organs. (adjective)
• Having two wings, as certain insects, or winglike appendages, as certain fruits and seeds: the dipterous fruit of the maple. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For the very reason of their being dipterous is that they are small and weak, and therefore require no more than two feathers to support their light weight; and the same reason which reduces their feathers to two causes their sting to be in front; for their strength is not sufficient to allow them to strike efficiently with the hinder part of the body."
• "Of creatures that can fly and are bloodless some are coleopterous or sheath-winged, for they have their wings in a sheath or shard, like the cockchafer and the dung-beetle; others are sheathless, and of these latter some are dipterous and some tetrapterous: tetrapterous, such as are comparatively large or have their stings in the tail, dipterous, such as are comparatively small or have their stings in front."
• "Some insects are dipterous or double-winged, as the fly; others are tetrapterous or furnished with four wings, as the bee; and, by the way, no insect with only two wings has a sting in the rear."