ˈflesh-fly
1. A fly which deposits its eggs (or, if viviparous, its larvæ) in dead flesh; a blow-fly (as Musca vomitoria or Sarcophaga carnaria). Used by Wyclif to render L. cynomyia.
| a 1300 Cursor M. 5956 Hungri flies..To fless-flies þai war likest. 1388 Wyclif Ps. lxxvii. 45 He sente a fleisch flie in to hem, and it eet hem. c 1440 Hylton Scala Perf. (W. de W. 1494) ii. xlii, There dare no flesshe flye rest vpon the pottes brynke. 1556 J. Heywood Spider & F. v. 9 A fleshe flie as big as a humble bee. 1658 Rowland Moufet's Theat. Ins. 934 The Flesh-fly..is the biggest of all other, he hath a reddish head, very greedy of flesh. 1789 G. White Selborne xvii. (1853) 70 The maggots which turn to flesh-flies. 1861 Hulme tr. Moquin-Tandon ii. iv. i. 237 The Flesh Fly..produces a constant buzzing noise. |
2. fig. of persons.
| 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 715 Esaus, and reprobates, and very carnall fleshflyes. 1611 Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. viii. ii. §2. 378 Those flesh flies having once tasted the sweet, though often beaten off, would not long bee kept away. 1782 Cowper Progr. Err. 324 These flesh-flies of the land, Who fasten without mercy on the fair. 1825 Macaulay Milton Ess. (1854) 15/2 If there be anything unsound, these flesh-flies detect it with unerring instinct. |