polverine

plural polverines

1. uncountableGlassmaker's ashes; a kind of potash or pearlash, brought from the Levant and Syria, used in the manufacture of fine glass.
2. countableA tiny biting insect found in South America.

   But all were more tolerable than those polverines.

   1991, MS Aufdemberge, The Mission Efforts of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the Chaco Province of Argentina

   2 more examples

   Mosquitoes and polverines, little midges so small as to be scarcely visible, rose in a cloud from the water and settled on our hands and faces.

   1946, Kenneth Walker, I talk of dreams: an experiment in autobiography, page 145

   The polverines, however, were so small and numerous that even though we massacred fifty with a slap it seemed to make no difference to the hazy black cloud which hung around our heads.

   1980, David Attenborough, The Zoo Quest Expeditions: Travels in Guyana, Indonesia, and Paraguay, →ISBN