noun

• 1A soft-bodied legless larva of a fly or other insect, found in decaying matter.

  ‘the maggots attack the roots of the developing cabbages’

  More example sentences

  • ‘These greenish larvae are typical fly maggots in appearance; legless, broadest at the tail end and tapering to a point at the head, with hook-like mouthparts.’
  • ‘This year flea beetles, white grubs, seed corn maggots and wireworms generated a lot of discussion.’
  • ‘Flea beetles and root maggots, the two major radish pests, can be avoided by placing floating row cover over the bed.’
  • ‘This insect is the maggot of the eggs laid by sawflies or carpenter bees in the freshly-cut cane of the rose after pruning.’
  • ‘Rat-tailed maggots are the larvae of the drone fly and, in order to pupate the larvae, look for a dry place and start migrating.’
  • ‘Although the risk of injury from seedling insects such as wireworms and seed corn maggots is reduced with a later planting, there is no post-emergence treatment for these insects.’
  • ‘It appears that these seed applied insecticides and liquid insecticides will be effective in protecting seeds from seed feeding insects such as wireworms and seedcorn maggots.’
  • ‘Root maggots in the roots of cabbage may retard the growth of the plant or it may wilt and even die.’
  • ‘There are ways to deal with coddling moths and apple maggots.’
  • ‘The Lonicera fly evolved as a hybrid of two existing U.S. species, the blueberry maggot and the snowberry maggot, according to the study.’
  • ‘There are three problems when growing garlic: drainage, gophers, and onion root maggots.’
  • ‘He wanted to know what we did to keep root maggots out of radishes.’
  • ‘Fruit flies, such as the apple maggot and the cherry fruit flies, are also common orchard pests.’
  • ‘One University of North Texas graduate student is using black fly maggots to compost that garbage.’
  • ‘Even if most people don't care to eat black radish, cabbage maggots sure love it and without a row cover a marketable crop can be almost impossible to achieve.’
  • ‘Because fruit and vegetable waste goes in the brown bin and sits there for up to two weeks, maggots and fruit flies end up in it.’
  • ‘White root maggot may attack a portion of your crop.’
  • ‘Within days fly maggots are born and release an enzyme that decapitates their ant host.’
  • ‘Centuries after the technique was pioneered, maggots are being used at Harrogate District Hospital in larvae therapy, to remove unhealthy tissue from wounds.’
  • ‘The changes that occur at metamorphosis can be rapid and dramatic, the classic examples being the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into an adult butterfly, a maggot into a fly, and a tadpole into a frog.’

  Synonyms

  grub, larva

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1Fishing mass noun Bait consisting of a maggot or maggots.
     ‘these sections produced a few good roach to maggot’
     More example sentences

     • ‘I did intend using maggot as one of the main baits but thought pre-baiting regularly with them might encourage too many of the water's small perch into the swim.’
     • ‘I am certain that more bream were caught on carp type baits rather than traditional bream baits like worm, caster or maggot.’
     • ‘The closest you can get to fishing with a natural bait for these timid tench is with the humble maggot and redworm.’
     • ‘Try fishing on the drop with maggot for the roach or on the bottom with chopped worm for the skimmers.’

• 2archaic A whimsical or strange idea.

  ‘"You know, Ruth," he said, "I don't wish to say anything against Isaac, and I don't want to make you uneasy, but you know as well as I do that he has a strange maggot in his brain.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘There's a strange maggot hath got into their brains, which possesseth them with a kind of vertigo, and it reigns in the pulpit more than anywhere else, for some of our preachmen are grown dog mad, there's a worm got into their tongues as well as their heads.’

  Synonyms

  impulse, urge, notion, fancy, whimsy, foible, idea, caprice, conceit, vagary, kink, megrim, crotchet, craze, fad, passion, inclination, bent

  View synonyms