Word.ws English Dictionary

canker fly

canker fly noun: a fly that feeds on fruit.

Noun

canker fly (plural canker flies)

  1. (archaic) A fly that feeds on fruit.
    • Siebenkäs, in a voice of wrath, now turned bis seat of judgment into a penitent's stool for the Venner, abusing him as a canker-fly of female buds, a dove-hawk, a house-breaker of the treasures of marriage.1845 [1796], Edward Henry Noel, transl., Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces: Or, The Married Life, Death, and Wedding of the Advocate of the Poor, Firmian Stanislaus Sibenkas̈, translation of original by...
    • And I requite to you the years which the locust ate, the canker-fly, and the fledged locust, and the young locust, my great host which I sent among you.1866, Rowland Williams, The Hebrew Prophets Translated Afresh from the Original, page 21

Forms of canker fly

pluralcanker flies

Questions about canker fly

What does canker fly mean?
Canker fly means a fly that feeds on fruit.
What part of speech is canker fly?
Canker fly is a noun.
What is the plural of canker fly?
The plural of canker fly is canker flies.

Words near canker fly in the dictionary

  1. Canjulao
  2. cank
  3. canked
  4. canker
  5. canker flies
  6. canker fly
  7. canker rash
  8. canker sore
  9. canker sores
  10. cankered
  11. cankeredly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: canker fly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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