maggot
Syllables: mag·got/ˈmæɡət/
maggot noun: a soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipteran insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter. Also the alternative form of MAGAt.
Noun
maggot (plural maggots)
- A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipteran insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter.
- Synonyms:
- grub
- A worthless, obnoxious or contemptible person.
- Drop and give me fifty, maggot.
- "Maggot!" said Catweazle angrily. "Sit thee down!"1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 32
- A whimsy or fancy.
- Are you not mad, my friend? What time o' th' moon is't? / Have not you maggots in your brain?1620, John Fletcher, Women Pleased, III.iv
- ‘I am ashamed of him! how can he think of humouring you in such maggots!’1778, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 100
- A fan of the American metal band Slipknot.
- (We) We are the new diabolic
(We) We are the bitter bucolic
If I have to give my life, you can have it
(We) We are the pulse of the maggots2004, “Pulse of the Maggots”, performed by Slipknot
- (We) We are the new diabolic
Verb
maggot (third-person singular simple present maggots, present participle maggoting, simple past and past participle maggoted)
- To rid (an animal) of maggots.
- In the summer I had to get the sheep penned twice a day to maggot them and I needed a good dog.1950, Frederick Daniel Smith, Barbara Wilcox, Sold for Two Farthings, page 82
Also used as
maggot is also the alternative form of MAGAt.
maggot is also the alternative form of maggoted.
maggot meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Malay and Indonesian
maggot in Tagalog
- dipterous insect's larva that eats decomposing organic matter
- uod
maggot in Arabic
- dipterous insect's larva that eats decomposing organic matter
- نَغَفة naḡafa
maggot in Malay
- dipterous insect's larva that eats decomposing organic matter
- belatung, berenga
maggot in Indonesian
- dipterous insect's larva that eats decomposing organic matter
- belatung, bernga
More languagesFewer languages
- maggot in Persian
- کرم kerm
- maggot in Thai
- หนอน nɔ̌ɔn
- maggot in Vietnamese
- giòi
- maggot in Myanmar
- လောက် lauk
- Kashmiri
- خۄڈٕ کیٛۆم khọḍụ kyom
Examples of maggot in a sentence
- We must wash out the bins; they are full of maggots.
- The sight of the squirming mass of maggots left me disgusted.
- Blech! Look at all those maggots!
Synonyms of maggot
Forms of maggot
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | maggots |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | maggots |
| present participle | maggoting |
| past participle | maggoted |
| past | maggoted |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more maggot |
| superlative | most maggot |
Origin of maggot
From Middle English magot, magat, maked, probably a metathetic alteration of maddock, maðek (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Proto-West Germanic *maþō, from Proto-Germanic *maþô, from the Proto-Indo-European root *mat, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made + -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask, Icelandic maðkur (“worm, grub, maggot”). The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in their brain.
Words formed from maggot
- act the maggot
- antimaggot
- apple maggot
- demaggot
- dog and maggot
- fox maggot
- gag a maggot
- MAGAt
- maggot bag
- maggot cheese
- maggoted
- maggotiness
- maggoting
- maggotish
- maggotless
- maggotlike
- maggotorium
- maggot-pated
- maggotpated
- maggot-pie
- maggotry
- maggot therapy
- maggoty
- onion maggot
- pea-maggot
- rat-tailed maggot
- red plum maggot
- seedcorn maggot
- white maggot
Phrases with maggot
Words that rhyme with maggot
Questions about maggot
- What does maggot mean?
- Maggot means a soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipteran insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter.
- What is maggot in Tagalog?
- Maggot in Tagalog is uod. See Maggot meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is maggot?
- Maggot can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce maggot?
- Maggot is pronounced /ˈmæɡət/.
- What is the plural of maggot?
- The plural of maggot is maggots.
Words near maggot in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: maggot (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-maggot.wav.
Cite this entry: “maggot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maggot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.