ˈfly-trap
[f. fly n.1 + trap.]
1. a. A trap to catch flies.
| 1855 in Ogilvie Suppl. 1859 Lang Wand. India 382 A fly-trap which he had that morning invented. |
b. fig.
| 1909 ‘O. Henry’ Options (1916) 62 Old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast..before setting forth to his down town fly-trap. 1925 W. Deeping Sorrell & Son iv, The ‘Cubby Hole’ of the Angel Inn was a pivot, a fly-trap, a cave into which all sorts of male things crowded, and drank. |
2. A fly-catching plant, esp. Apocynum androsæmifolium. Venus's fly-trap = Dionæa muscipula.
| 1774 Goldsm. Hist. Earth VIII. v. viii. 162 The flower, which goes by the name of the fly-trap. 1776 Lee Bot. 276 Dionæa, Venus's flytrap. 1841 in Maunder Sci. & Lit. Treasury. |
3. slang. The mouth.
| c 1795 M. G. Lewis in Spirit Pub. Jrnls. (1798) I. 323 The bride shuts her fly trap; the stranger complies. |