What does "blowfly" mean?

Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.

What is a synonym for "blowfly"?

Common synonyms include: blow fly, bottlefly, meat fly.

Blowfly

//ˈbloʊˌflaɪ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
"The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one. Pulling off its legs, she placed it with the hornet, and both lay side by side unprotestingly."
2
large usually hairy metallic blue or green fly; lays eggs in carrion or dung or wounds wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

blow fly bottlefly meat fly

Example

More examples

"The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one. Pulling off its legs, she placed it with the hornet, and both lay side by side unprotestingly."

Related phrases

open wound

More for "blowfly"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.