MAGGOT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does maggot mean? 

• MAGGOT (noun)
  The noun MAGGOT has 1 sense:

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

  Familiarity information: MAGGOT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAGGOT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The larva of the housefly and blowfly commonly found in decaying organic matter

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("maggot" is a kind of...):

grub (a soft thick wormlike larva of certain beetles and other insects)

Derivation:

maggoty (spoiled and covered with eggs and larvae of flies)

 Context examples 

He had seen a great vision and was as a god, and he could feel only profound and awful pity for this maggot of a man.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The centre of that circle was "work performed"; it ate at his brain like a deathless maggot.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A few more drinks, and in his brain he felt the maggots of intoxication beginning to crawl.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He was drunken in new and more profound ways—with Ruth, who had fired him with love and with a glimpse of higher and eternal life; with books, that had set a myriad maggots of desire gnawing in his brain; and with the sense of personal cleanliness he was achieving, that gave him even more superb health than what he had enjoyed and that made his whole body sing with physical well-being.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He envied Joe, down in the village, rampant, tearing the slats off the bar, his brain gnawing with maggots, exulting in maudlin ways over maudlin things, fantastically and gloriously drunk and forgetful of Monday morning and the week of deadening toil to come.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)