flea

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (3)  · 
“
Ghost of a flea Ghost of a flea is a Toronto based blog about politics and popular culture.

View all »
Definitions (14)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Any of various small, wingless, bloodsucking insects of the order Siphonaptera that have legs adapted for jumping and are parasitic on warm-blooded animals.
  2. noun Any of various small crustaceans that resemble or move like fleas, such as the water flea.
  3. idiom a flea in (one's) ear An annoying hint or a stinging rebuke.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (8)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (38)

  • Ghost of a flea Ghost of a flea is a Toronto based blog about politics and popular culture. —  Ghost of a flea
  • The life cycle of a flea is about two weeks, but the average female lays 500 eggs in her lifetime!
  • He called a flea-flicker pass from Antwaan Randle El to Hines Ward for a touchdown that helped the Steelers win Super Bowl 40. —  Top Stories - Google News
  • "All dogs look alike to a flea, and I reckon Tintoretto is as good flea-feed as the next. —  Bruvver Jim's Baby
  • Th' man that descinds t' be tutor t' a flea, and t' teach it all th' accomplishments, from readin' and writin' t' arithmetic and football, mebby, is peculiar. —  Mike Flannery On Duty and Off
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 105 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English fle, from Old English flēah.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English also flee; from Middle English flee, fle, plural flees, earlier fleen, flen, from Anglo-Saxon fleáh, also contr. fleá, sometimes written flǣh, fleó = Dutch vloo = Middle Low German vlō, vloe, Low German flo = Old High German flōh, Middle High German vlōch, German floh = Icelandic flō (the Swedish Danish word is different: Swedish loppa = Danish loppe, a flea, literally ‘leaper’: see leap), a flea; prob. from the root of Anglo-Saxon fleón, orig. *fleóhan, flee: see flee. Not connected with fly, v., or fly, n.
  2. from flea, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/fli/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a month.

Recently looked up

death-bed · indecorous · high-margin · yard · sordid

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally