Word.ws English Dictionary

coffin fly

coffin fly noun: the scuttle fly, Megaselia scalaris, an omnivorous fly which eeds on plants (nectar) as well as carrion.

Noun

coffin fly (plural coffin flies)

  1. The scuttle fly, Megaselia scalaris, an omnivorous fly which eeds on plants (nectar) as well as carrion.
  2. The fly Conicera tibialis, which feeds on carrion.

Forms of coffin fly

pluralcoffin flies

Origin of coffin fly

Both phorid flies are called "coffin flies" because they can be found in coffins, being able to detect buried corpses and crawl through soil to reach them.

Questions about coffin fly

What does coffin fly mean?
Coffin fly means the scuttle fly, Megaselia scalaris, an omnivorous fly which eeds on plants (nectar) as well as carrion.
What part of speech is coffin fly?
Coffin fly is a noun.
What is the plural of coffin fly?
The plural of coffin fly is coffin flies.

Words near coffin fly in the dictionary

  1. coffin corners
  2. coffin dodger
  3. coffin dodgers
  4. coffin door
  5. coffin flies
  6. coffin fly
  7. coffin handle
  8. coffin handles
  9. coffin nail
  10. coffin nails
  11. coffin ride

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coffin 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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Cite this entry: “coffin fly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coffin_fly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.