blowfly

• blow-fly, blow fly

blowfly (plural blowflies)

1. Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 168:

     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.

   • 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:

     What is a blow-fly? That is what I thought when I saw them: blow-flies. Is there something dead around here that has not yet begun to stink? I cannot discover where they are coming from; they just appear in the light of the lamp, attracted by the warmth, I suppose, and fly up against the bulb and then drop stunned on the table and flop about groggily until I sweep them away with my sleeve.

• bottlefly, meat fly

• blowie
• bluebottle, blue-bottle fly
• greenbottle, green-bottle fly

• flesh fly, flesh-fly, fleshfly
• flyblow (noun), flyblown (adj)

• flyblow