flypaper

English

Etymology

fly + paper

Noun

flypaper (countable and uncountable, plural flypapers)

  1. A strip of paper coated with a sticky, often poisonous, substance that catches and kills flies that land on it

Synonyms

  • fly ribbon

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

flypaper (third-person singular simple present flypapers, present participle flypapering, simple past and past participle flypapered)

  1. To cause something to become stuck with, or as if with, flypaper.
    • 1967, Auren Uris, Keeping young in business, page 134:
      He gets flypapered by a task that should be turned over to a subordinate.
    • 1970, Cross & Cockade Journal - Volume 11, page 373:
      Cover painting that flypapered the eyes were very important to G-8 sales, and Frederick Blakeslee's mixing of fantasy with the realistic texture of machines had a hypnotic effect on impressionable coin-holders.
    • 1996, Gilbert Alter-Gilbert, Life and Limb: Selected Tales of Peril, Predicament, and Dire Distress, page 20:
      In 'The Vertical Ladder," a hapless adolescent is flypapered fast in perpetuity, a mean little speck, on the mast of implacability.
    • 2010, The Malahat Review - Issues 170-173, page 20:
      Hysterical parties on her dorm floor concussed the hallways with music and produced a semi-permanent layer of trodden chips flypapered onto the carpet by spilled beer.
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