blowfly

English

A Calliphora livida fly specimen

Alternative forms

• blow-fly, blow fly

Noun

blowfly (plural blowflies)

1. Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 168:

     The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one. Pulling off its legs, she placed it with the hornet, and both lay side by side unprotestingly.

   • 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:

     What is a blow-fly? That is what I thought when I saw them: blow-flies. Is there something dead around here that has not yet begun to stink? I cannot discover where they are coming from; they just appear in the light of the lamp, attracted by the warmth, I suppose, and fly up against the bulb and then drop stunned on the table and flop about groggily until I sweep them away with my sleeve.

Synonyms

• bottlefly, meat fly

Hyponyms

• blowie
• bluebottle, blue-bottle fly
• greenbottle, green-bottle fly

Related terms

• flesh fly, flesh-fly, fleshfly
• flyblow (noun), flyblown (adj)

Translations

flies of the family Calliphoridae

• Bislama: bluflae
• Bulgarian: муха месарка f (muha mesarka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 麗蠅／丽蝇 (lìying), 綠頭蒼蠅／绿头苍蝇 (lǜtóu cāngying)

• Dutch: bromvlieg (nl) f, aasvlieg (nl) f
• Esperanto: kaliforo
• Finnish: raatokärpänen
• French: mouche à viande (fr) f
• Galician: vareixa f, moscón m
• German: Schmeißfliege (de) f, Aasfliege (de) f, Schmeiße f
• Greek: κρεατόμυγα (el) f (kreatómyga)
• Icelandic: maðkafluga (is) f
• Japanese: クロバエ (ja) (kurobae)
• Macedonian: мува месарка f (muva mesarka)
• Malay: langau hijau
• Maori: rango (mi), ngaro, rango tamumu
• Navajo: tséʼédǫ́ʼii dootłʼizhí
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: spyflue m or f

  Nynorsk: spyfluge f

• Ottoman Turkish: قورت سیڭكی (kurt sineği)
• Portuguese: varejeira f
• Russian: мясна́я му́ха f (mjasnája múxa)
• Serbo-Croatian: zujara (sh) f, zunzara (sh) f, zundarača (sh) f
• Spanish: moscardón (es) m, moscarda (es) f
• Swedish: spyfluga (sv) c
• Turkish: kurt sineği (tr)

Anagrams

• flyblow