maggot

[ mag-uht ]

noun

1. a soft-bodied, legless larva of certain flies.
2. Archaic. an odd fancy; whim.

maggot

/ ˈmæɡət /

noun

1. the soft limbless larva of dipterous insects, esp the housefly and blowfly, occurring in decaying organic matter
2. rare.
   a fancy or whim

Word History and Origins

Origin of maggot¹

1425–75; late Middle English magot, magat, unexplained variant of maddock, Middle English mathek < Old Norse mathkr; akin to Danish maddik maggot, Old English matha, mathu grub, maggot, Old High German mado maggot

Word History and Origins

Origin of maggot¹

C14: from earlier mathek; related to Old Norse mathkr worm, Old English matha, Old High German mado grub

Example Sentences

"Researchers have completed the connectomes of a simple worm which has 300 wires and a maggot which has three thousand, but having a complete connectome of something with 130,000 wires is an amazing technical feat which paves the way for finding the connectomes for larger brains such as the mouse and maybe in several decades our own."

From BBC

"No, I’m disappointed with Maggot, and her lack of writing skill, and that some of these many police aren’t being sent to Columbia and NYU to keep the schools open and the students safe."

From Salon

And that’s when she stumbled across Ron Sherman, the maggot doctor.

From Slate

This enzyme protects the maggot from infections, protecting us in the process.

From Slate

According to Sherman, “Less than 5 percent of patients who are destined for amputation are given a trial of maggot therapy, even though published studies show that 50 to 70 percent of those amputations could probably be prevented.”

From Slate

Related Words

• grub
• worm