Four ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Gnat after the insect.
- The first Gnat was a Cheerful class gunboat built at Laird's shipyard and launched on 10 May 1856. She was broken up in August 1864.
- The second Gnat was a composite screw gunvessel launched at Pembroke Dockyard on 26 November 1867. She was wrecked on Balabac Island in the South China Sea on 15 November 1868.
- The third Gnat was a small coastal destroyer launched by Thornycroft at Chiswick on 1 December 1906 and sold for scrapping on 9 May 1921.
- The most recent Gnat was an Insect class gunboat launched by Lobnitz and Co. Shipyard at Renfrew in Scotland on 3 December 1915. She was torpedoed by a submarine on 21 October 1941 and beached at Alexandria, where she was converted to a fixed anti-aircraft platform. She was broken up in 1945.
Famous quotes containing the word gnat:
“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?
Who’s sorry for a gnat ... or girl?”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)