Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The egg or larva of a blowfly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make flyblown; taint with or as if with flyblows: chiefly in figurative uses.
  • To deposit eggs on meat or the like, as a fly.
  • noun The egg of a fly, the presence of which in numbers on meat, etc., makes it tainted and maggoty.
  • Of the nature of flyblow; flyblown.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To deposit eggs upon, as a flesh fly does on meat; to cause to be maggoty; hence, to taint or contaminate, as if with flyblows.
  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the eggs or young larvæ deposited by a flesh fly, or blowfly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The larva of the blowfly, especially when found on rotten meat.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word flyblow.

Examples

  • If you didn't have good schools for that man's children and his team's children, you knew he would flyblow South Carolina and industry would never come.

    Sen. Fritz Hollings: Best Off-Broadway Show Sen. Fritz Hollings 2010

  • If you didn't have good schools for that man's children and his team's children, you knew he would flyblow South Carolina and industry would never come.

    Sen. Fritz Hollings: Best Off-Broadway Show Sen. Fritz Hollings 2010

  • If you didn't have good schools for that man's children and his team's children, you knew he would flyblow South Carolina and industry would never come.

    Sen. Fritz Hollings: Best Off-Broadway Show Sen. Fritz Hollings 2010

  • If you didn't have good schools for that man's children and his team's children, you knew he would flyblow South Carolina and industry would never come.

    Sen. Fritz Hollings: Best Off-Broadway Show Sen. Fritz Hollings 2010

  • If you didn't have good schools for that man's children and his team's children, you knew he would flyblow South Carolina and industry would never come.

    Sen. Fritz Hollings: Best Off-Broadway Show Sen. Fritz Hollings 2010

  • Though his net intrants wight weighed nought but a flyblow to his gross and ganz afterduepoise.

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • Grubs -- or flyblow, description and treatment, 481 under the skin, description and treatment, 481

    Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877

  • The oil of vainglory feeds the lamp; sinister aims corrupt and flyblow our holy things.

    The Lord's Prayer 1692

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • He led me to an unfrequented part of the house, and opened his business thus -- Worthy sir, I make it a point of conscience to give you a very serious warning. You are aware that the Marquis de Marialva had at first taken a fancy to Narcissa, my wife; he had even gone so far as to fix a day for trying the relish of my rib, when that cockatrice Estella contrived to flyblow the bill of fare, and transfer the banquet to her own untainted charms.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 7 ch. 11

    October 2, 2008