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Glite Dictionary
barfly

barfly

4 8.2
A person who spends a lot of time drinking and talking in bars
  • noun
  • /ˈbɑːrˌflaɪ/
  • Slang
translation icon : habitual de bar
  • The bar was full of barflies, chatting and laughing over their drinks.
  • just a barfly

Examples

  • Yeah, you're the damnedest barfly I've ever seen.

    Barfly (1987)

  • A disheveled female barfly, Flo, grins up at him.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • It's just kind of, you know, the, the barfly at the local Tavern.

  • One of them, an older, grizzled BARFLY, looks up at Jeff.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • The Barfly gives Jeff a wink and turns back to his beer.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • The barflies chuckle among themselves.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Her Pam, a local barfly, immediately falls victim to the crazy road rampage of a former stuntman-gone-psychopath who's out for his idea of a small-town good time.

    Blog text (32)

  • Soon it's known that I'm a solo guest and that I would like to have a place to go for a drink without being bothered by random drunks or overly chatty barflies.

    Blog text (8)

  • I sat there and I watched the gamblers bent over their tables and the barflies bent over their drinks, and I had to remind myself that I was on the Moon—that just being here at all was a miracle that would have had most past civilizations consider us gods.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • He spotted a barfly nursing a beer at the end of the counter.

Synonyms

bar fly
vsbarfly
  • Slang
8.1

A person who spends a lot of time drinking at bars

has identical meaning but written as one word

Antonyms

teetotaler
  • US
5 7.5

A person who never drinks alcohol

How Frequent

barfly
  • Slang
4 8.2
patron
108 3.7
customer
∞ 1.0
visitor
908 1.0

Surface Forms

barfly singular
barflies plural

Morphology

barfly = bar + fly (semi-transparent) = bar + fly

The components 'bar' and 'fly' are recognizable, but the animal metaphorical use of 'fly' to mean a habitual patron is informal and idiomatic, so the exact sense is not fully derivable by all learners.

Etymology

Barfly comes from bar and fly, giving the picture of someone who 'stays' at the bar like a little insect. That's why a barfly means a person who spends a lot of time drinking and talking in pubs.