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  1. maggot love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The legless, soft-bodied, wormlike larva of any of various flies of the order Diptera, often found in decaying matter.
  2. n. Slang A despicable person.
  3. n. An extravagant notion; a whim.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Properly, the larva of a fly or other insect: hence, in general, a grub; a worm: applied to footless larvæ, and especially to the larvæ of flies.
  2. n. A whim; a crotchet; an odd fancy: mostly in such expressions as a maggot in one's head.
  3. n. A frisky fellow; one given to pranks.
  4. n. A whimsical impromptu melody or song.
  5. n. (See also cheese-maggot, meat-maggot.)

Wiktionary

  1. n. A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipterous insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter.
  2. n. A term of insult for a 'worthless' person, as if a bug.
  3. n. obsolete A whimsy or fancy.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) The footless larva of any fly. See larval.
  2. n. A whim; an odd fancy.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the larva of the housefly and blowfly commonly found in decaying organic matter

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English magot, magotte, probably Anglo-Norman alteration of maddock ("worm", "maggot"), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from common Germanic root *mathon-, from the Proto-Indo-European root *math-, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made +‎ -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask. The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in his or her brain. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English magot, perhaps alteration of mathek, maddokk, perhaps from Old English matha. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but were it called a maggot, a schist or a cloaca, we would think of it quite differently.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Why Juliet Could Never Be Plain Julie

  • “The larvae preferentially consume dead tissue (steering clear of live), they excrete an antibacterial agent, and they stimulate wound healing -- all factors that could be linked to the lower occurrence of infection in maggot-treated wounds.”

    Boing Boing: September 12, 2004 - September 18, 2004 Archives

  • “He said that he had not been "maggot" - slang for getting out of it - for almost two weeks, so was going to make the most of it.”

    New Zealand Herald - Top Stories

  • “In the blog Bitesize Bio I came across a press release PDF from Monarch Labs on their Larval Debridement Therapy, also known as maggot therapy.”

    Rambles at starchamber.com » Blog Archive » Larval Debridement Therapy

  • “The egg of a common house-fly hatches into a larva called a maggot; in this condition the body destined to become the vastly different fly is composed of soft-skinned segments very much alike and also similar to the joints of a worm.”

    The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope

  • “Chironomus, in the thoracic region of the legless maggot, which is the larva of an insect of this family, and the imaginal discs for eyes and feelers (fig. 11 _e_, _f_) lie just in front of it.”

    The Life-Story of Insects

  • “The broad end of the maggot is the tail, while the narrow extremity marks the position of the mouth.”

    The Life-Story of Insects

  • “The soil of this island is poor for any purpose but growing timber; the inhabitants consequently are not many, and they live on roots and fish and what we should think still poorer food – a great wood maggot, which is found in plenty.”

    The Old Helmet

  • “The soil of this island is poor for any purpose but growing timber; the inhabitants consequently are not many, and they live on roots and fish and what we should think still poorer food -- a great wood maggot, which is found in plenty.”

    The Old Helmet, Volume II

  • “In a process called maggot debridement treatment, the bugs are placed directly onto a wound, where they remove dead tissue known as slough, which prevents healing.”

    NYDN Rss

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. whim
  1. grub

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. grub

same context (25)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. weevil
  2. termite
  3. grasshopper
  4. grub
  5. caterpillar
  1. snail
  2. vermin
  3. moth
  4. earthworm
  5. worm
  1. borers
  2. larva
  3. beetle
  4. flea
  5. locust
  1. rodent
  2. spider
  3. mite
  4. ant
  5. chrysalis
  1. louse
  2. slug
  3. pest
  4. frog
  5. insect

rhymes (2)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. agate
  1. faggot

reverse dictionary (34)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. cheese-hopper
  2. whay-worm
  3. magget
  4. maggoty-headed
  5. magot
  6. cabbage-root maggot
  1. maggot
  2. vermiform
  3. mawk
  4. black fly
  5. housefly
  6. fruit-maggot
  1. goldenrod-gall
  2. pea-moth
  3. railroad-worm
  4. side-fly
  5. beet-leaf maggot
  6. bean fly
  1. brain-worm
  2. larviform
  3. mad
  4. maddock
  5. cabbage fly
  6. corn fly
  1. metamorphosis
  2. skipper
  3. wolf
  4. bot
  5. flesh-worm
  6. gentle
  1. scolecophagus
  2. apple-fly
  3. pegomya
  4. worm

tags (3)

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  1. music
  1. dance
  1. on toast

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Lists

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Comments

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  • hernesheir (n): In traditional dance and music (primarliy English and American), a term referring to either the name of a tune, a specific dance, or both. In this context, maggot seems to connote earworm. Titles/names include Draper's Maggot, Miss Spark's Maggot, and Mr. Isaac's Maggot. Jan 17, 2009

  • yarb Mmmm - yes indeed. Shuddersome. Jun 23, 2008

  • jookerie It makes me shiver! It's such a horrible sounding word,kind of rolling off your tongue. Jun 23, 2008

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‘maggot’ has been looked up 1986 times, added to 24 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.