See also: fleabag

English edit

Pronunciation edit

  • (file)

Noun edit

flea bag (plural flea bags)

  1. (slang) A disreputable place of accommodation.
    • 1993, Bill Murray, Groundhog Day:
      I stayed in this hotel last year, I hated it, it's a flea bag.
    • 2010, Isaac Hallenberg, The Dwarf's Doubloons, →ISBN, page 63:
      It's not a flea bag or one of those two hour hotels with the girls coming and going.
  2. (slang, derogatory) An unkempt mammal, especially a dog or cat.
    • 2012, Chrystal Parker, Daily Dose of Dogs (Aka Cats with Your Coffee), →ISBN, page 379:
      I scooped this little flea bag up and headed to the bathroom.
    • 2012, Ewart R N Jowett, The Wizard of the Stove Pipe Mountains, →ISBN:
      The animal was far from being a 'mangy old flea-bag'; and in fact had a nice glossy coat and was a well built cart horse.
  3. (slang) A sleeping bag.
    • 1979, Dervla Murphy, Wheels Within Wheels, page 223:
      I slept out in my flea-bag each night—the weather was almost too hot for long-disatnce cycling—and had unwound considerably by the time I reached Mainz.
    • 1997, Wilfred R. Bion, War Memoirs 1917-1919, →ISBN, page 179:
      I pulled myself out of my flea-bag and reached for my clothes.
    • 2012, Tim Carroll, The Dodger:
      Consuelo was so taken by Freyberg that she presented him with a Jaeger sleeping bag. On their last night of leave at Seymour Street, Flora entertained Eddie Marsh and Rupert Brooke to dinner with Johnny and Freyberg. When they had returned to camp, Johnny wrote to his mother that Freyberg was so pleased with the 'flea bag' that he'd christened it 'Consuelo'.
  4. A poor and disreputable person.
    • 2003, Charles Merrill, The Hidden Gift, →ISBN, page 5:
      He clearly had some of the spunk from the war left in him, for Tim always found the man addressing him as “flea bag,” “scum” or “maggot.”
    • 2007, DJ Birmingham, The Queen's Tale: The Struggle for the Survival of Ireland, →ISBN, page 124:
      O'Kelly whispered hoarsely, “Speak, you wretched flea-bag.

Translations edit