maggot - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English magot, magat, maked, probably a metathetic alteration of maddock, maðek (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Proto-West Germanic *maþō, from Proto-Germanic *maþô, from the Proto-Indo-European root *mat, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made +‎ -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask, Icelandic maðkur (“worm, grub, maggot”).

The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in their brain.

maggot (plural maggots)

  1. A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipteran insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter. [from 15th c.]
  2. (slang, derogatory) A worthless person. [from 17th c.]
    Drop and give me fifty, maggot.
    • 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 32:
      "Maggot!" said Catweazle angrily. "Sit thee down!"
  3. (archaic or dialect) A whimsy or fancy. [from 17th c.]
    • 1620, John Fletcher, Women Pleased, III.iv:
      Are you not mad, my friend? What time o' th' moon is't? / Have not you maggots in your brain?
    • 1778, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 100:
      ‘I am ashamed of him! how can he think of humouring you in such maggots!’
    • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:
      […] 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.'
    • 1927, Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death‎[1]:
      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.
  4. (slang) A fan of the American metal band Slipknot.
    • 2004, “Pulse of the Maggots”, performed by 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
  5. (US politics, slang, offensive, derogatory) Alternative form of MAGAt.

dipterous insect's larva that eats decomposing organic matter

worthless person

whimsy or fancy

maggot (third-person singular simple present maggots, present participle maggoting, simple past and past participle maggoted)

  1. (transitive) To rid (an animal) of maggots.
    • 1950, Frederick Daniel Smith, Barbara Wilcox, Sold for Two Farthings, page 82:
      In the summer I had to get the sheep penned twice a day to maggot them and I needed a good dog.

maggot (comparative more maggot, superlative most maggot)

  1. (colloquial, Australia) Alternative form of maggoted (“drunk; intoxicated”).