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shoofly

9.1

A sweet pie made with molasses or a person who watches and warns others

noun
/ˈʃuːflaɪ/

: pastel de melaza

For dessert, she promised to bring a homemade shoofly pie, a sweet treat that her family loves.
shoofly pie

Examples

Chess, shoofly, pecan.

Fiction book (1999)
Last Sunday, I baked a delicious shoofly pie with a rich molasses filling that everyone enjoyed.
At the county fair, the local baker sold her famous shoofly pies, attracting long lines of customers.

Synonyms

kickshaw

vsshoofly

Archaic

1 9.9

A small fancy dish served as a treat

is a single regional molasses dessert rather than any fancy dish

shoofly pie

vsshoofly

9.6

A sweet open pie that uses molasses and a crumb topping

also can mean a person who keeps watch rather than food

Compounds

shoofly pie

9.6

A sweet open pie that uses molasses and a crumb topping

Surface Forms

shoofly singular

shooflies plural

Morphology

shoofly = shoo + fly (semi-transparent) = shoo + fly

The pie sense is idiomatic/historical and not fully predictable, while the literal 'drive away flies' reading is transparent; the 'lookout' reading is metaphorical and non‑transparent.

Etymology

Shoofly as the molasses pie and as a lookout shares the same simple start: shoo + fly. The pie got its name because you had to 'shoo' flies from the sweet, sticky crust, and by extension a person called a shoofly watches or warns others, like someone who keeps trouble away.