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Glite Dictionary
🪰 Spoiled by flies 🏚️ Dirty and run-down
flyblown

flyblown

1 9.9
Food spoiled and containing fly eggs or larvae
  • adjective
  • /ˈflaɪˌbloʊn/
  • Archaic
translation icon : infestado
  • The outdated meat in the refrigerator was flyblown and needed to be thrown away.

Examples

  • After a few days in the open sun, the picnic leftovers were flyblown and no longer safe to eat.

  • There is a reason that the children in famine-wracked countries on the 6:00 news are flyblown, with swollen bellies and dull, listless eyes, while the mothers are merely skin and bones.

    Blog text (24)

  • The flyblown vegetables in the back of the fridge were a sad reminder of my poor meal planning.

Synonyms

maggoty
vsflyblown
1 7.9

Food that is rotten and full of small white worm-like insects

is about spoilage that may include eggs or larvae rather than only visible larvae

Antonyms

clean
∞ 1.0

Free from dirt or harmful things

fresh
778 1.0

Recently made or gathered food that is not spoiled

How Spoiled

rotten
81 1.0
flyblown
  • Archaic
1 9.9
spoiled
1 1.8
stale
54 1.1
fresh
778 1.0

Surface Forms

flyblown positive

Morphology

flyblown = fly + blown (transparent) = fly + blown

The adjective is a clear compound of 'fly' + 'blown' meaning affected by flies (i.e., spoiled/infested), so learners who know the parts can infer the sense.

Etymology

Flyblown comes from the parts fly and blown, which you can think of as 'covered by flies' that have landed and left eggs. So flyblown describes food that is spoiled and full of flies' eggs or baby flies.