'anopheles' originates from Greek, specifically the word 'anophēlēs', where 'an-' meant 'not' and 'ophelēs' meant 'useful'.

'anophēlēs' entered scientific Latin/Neo-Latin as the genus name 'Anopheles' in entomological taxonomy and was subsequently adopted into English as 'anopheles' to refer to that mosquito genus.

Initially, it meant 'useless' in Greek, but over time it became the taxonomic name for a genus of mosquitoes and now denotes that genus (not the original meaning 'useless').