Word.ws English Dictionary

Spanish flies

Spanish flies is the plural of Spanish fly.

Meaning of Spanish fly

Noun

Spanish fly (usually uncountable, plural Spanish flies)

  1. (usually) A supposed aphrodisiac extracted from the blister beetle Lytta vesicatoria; cantharidin, the active ingredient, a vesicant used as a defence by L. vesicatoria and other blister beetles.
    • Ingestion of Spanish fly causes burning in the throat and sloughing of the upper gastrointestinal tract.2010, Carol Turkington, Deborah R. Mitchell, cantharidin, entry in Encyclopaedia of Poisons and Antidotes, 3rd Edition, page 49
  2. (countable, usually) The beetle Lytta vesicatoria.
    • The Spanish fly abounds in the south of France, Spain, and Italy, and is found on the ash, lilac, privet, elder, honeysuckle, plum, willow, and elm trees.[…]The American fly is rather smaller than the Spanish fly, and of a much darker color.1850, Thomas Duché Mitchell, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, page 248
    Synonyms:
    cantharis

Questions about Spanish flies

What is Spanish flies the plural of?
Spanish flies is the plural of Spanish fly.

Words near Spanish flies in the dictionary

  1. Spanish Empire
  2. Spanish fever
  3. Spanish fir
  4. Spanish firs
  5. Spanish flag
  6. Spanish flies
  7. Spanish Flu
  8. Spanish fly
  9. Spanish fowl
  10. Spanish fowls
  11. Spanish fox

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Spanish flies (page history and authors); Spanish 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: “Spanish flies.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spanish_flies. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.