ˈgad-ˌbee
[f. gad n.1]
= gad-fly 1.
| 1530 Palsgr. 223/2 Gadde be a flye, bourdon. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 318 The bigger kind of bees..and this vermin is called Oestrus (i. the gad-bee or horse flie). 1639 Horn & Rob. Gate Lang. Unl. xix. §221 Cattell stricken with a gad-bee, skip up and down, and run about. 1731 Rape Helen ii, Like an heifer, when her back sustains Of biting gadbees the deep piercing pains. 1829 Glover Hist. Derby I. 177 Oestrus Curvicauda, Gadbee or Dun Fly. 1842 Browning Artemis Prologizes 21 A noisome lust that, as the gadbee stings, Possessed his stepdame. |
† b. fig. in phrase to have a gad-bee in one's brains: to be crazy. Cf. bee1 5. Obs.
| 1682 A. Behn False Count ii. ii, What means he? sure he has a gad-bee in his brains. |