Word.ws English Dictionary

oestrus

/ˈiːstɹəs/

oestrus noun: a biting fly of the genus Oestrus; a botfly.

Noun

oestrus (countable and uncountable, plural oestruses or oestri)

  1. (countable) A biting fly of the genus Oestrus; a botfly.
    • […] and which is produced by the larvae of oestri and particularly of Oestrus hemorrhoidalis.1915, American Veterinary Review, page 407
    • If this is inseparable from the oeconomy of nature, it necessarily follows that man must be subject to the depredations of oestri, ichneumons, . . . and perhaps, thousands of others, which the senses, aided by the directions of a correct understanding, may be able to trace in a way that will fall...1963, Bacteriological Reviews, page 92, column 1
  2. (countable) A bite or sting.
  3. (archaic, countable) A passion or frenzy.
  4. A female animal's readiness to mate.
    • In those monoestrous species in which the male is capable all the year round, it is found that the oestri of individual females come at different seasons.1910, Cleveland Medical Journal, page 517
    • A vasectomized Philippine carabao bull was used as a teaser to determine the occurrence and recurrence of oestri.1939, The Philippine Agriculturist, page 289

oestrus meaning in Tamil and Malay

oestrus in Tamil

ஈத்திரசுக்குரிய, காமவேட்கை, சினைப்பருவம், இருது, விலங்கினங்கள் பாலுணர்வு

oestrus in Malay

a female animal's readiness to mate
estrus

Examples of oestrus in a sentence

  • It’s the supremely human act, freely to fuck, not because you are on heat, or in oestrus, like an animal, but to give and receive pleasure.2001, David Lodge, Thinks...:
  • The substantial genital swelling of [female chimpanzees] during oestrus may facilitate transmission of viruses by making the mucosa more fragile.2011, Jacques Pepin, “The Source”, in The Origins of AIDS, 1st edition, →ISBN, page 29:

Forms of oestrus

pluraloestruses
pluraloestri
alternative USestrus
alternative form (archaic)œstrus

Origin of oestrus

Borrowed from Latin oestrus (“gadfly, sting, frenzy”), from Ancient Greek οἶστρος (oîstros), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eys-, used to form words denoting passion; see also Latin īra (“anger”), Lithuanian aistra (“violent passion”), Avestan 𐬀𐬈𐬯𐬨𐬀 (aesma, “anger”).

Words formed from oestrus

Questions about oestrus

What does oestrus mean?
Oestrus means a biting fly of the genus Oestrus; a botfly.
What is oestrus in Tamil?
Oestrus in Tamil is ஈத்திரசுக்குரிய, காமவேட்கை, சினைப்பருவம். See Oestrus meaning in Tamil.
How do you use oestrus in a sentence?
It’s the supremely human act, freely to fuck, not because you are on heat, or in oestrus, like an animal, but to give and receive pleasure.
What part of speech is oestrus?
Oestrus is a noun.
How do you pronounce oestrus?
Oestrus is pronounced /ˈiːstɹəs/.
What is the plural of oestrus?
The plural of oestrus is oestruses.

Words near oestrus in the dictionary

  1. oestruating
  2. oestruation
  3. oestruations
  4. oestrum
  5. oestrums
  6. oestrus
  7. oestruses
  8. oesypum
  9. Oetaea
  10. Oetken
  11. Oetkens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oestrus (page history and authors); oestrus (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-oestrus.ogg.

Cite this entry: “oestrus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oestrus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.