maggot

plural maggots

1. A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipteran insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter.First known use 15th c.

   Synonyms: grub

2. derogatoryslangvulgarA worthless, obnoxious or contemptible person.First known use 17th c.

   Drop and give me fifty, maggot.

   1 more example

   "Maggot!" said Catweazle angrily. "Sit thee down!"

   1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 32

3. archaicdialectalA whimsy or fancy.First known use 17th c.

   ‘I am ashamed of him! how can he think of humouring you in such maggots!’

   1778, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 100

   3 more examples

   Are you not mad, my friend? What time o' th' moon is't? / Have not you maggots in your brain?

   1620, John Fletcher, Women Pleased, III.iv

   […] If you draw, Sir, there's one prospect up the river, by the mills—upon my conscience—but you don't draw?' No answer. 'A little, Sir, maybe? Just for a maggot, I'll wager—like my good lady, Mrs. Toole.'

   1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

   Scotland Yard have two maggots which crop up whenever anything happens to a young woman. Either it’s White Slavery or Dope Dens⁠—sometimes both.

   1927, Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death

4. slangA fan of the American metal band Slipknot.

   (We) We are the new diabolic (We) We are the bitter bucolic If I have to give my life, you can have it (We) We are the pulse of the maggots

   2004, “Pulse of the Maggots”, performed by Slipknot

5. USalternativederogatoryoffensiveslanggovernmentAlternative form of MAGAt.

present singular third person maggots · participle present maggoting · participle past maggoted · past maggoted

1. transitiveTo rid (an animal) of maggots.

   In the summer I had to get the sheep penned twice a day to maggot them and I needed a good dog.

   1950, Frederick Daniel Smith, Barbara Wilcox, Sold for Two Farthings, page 82

comparative more maggot · superlative most maggot

1. AustraliaalternativecolloquialAlternative form of maggoted (“drunk; intoxicated”).