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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

fly-paper en · NOUN

Meanings

  1. (alt-of, alternative, countable, uncountable) Alternative form of flypaper.
    alt of flypaper
    • Fly-paper has accomplished nothing. The percentage of flies that get hitched to it is but one in the hundred, and the other ninety-nine assemble as at a circus and enjoy the.performance. 2001, Mark Twain, “The Supremacy of the House Fly”, in Microfilm Edition of Mark Tawin's Literary Manuscripts Available in the Mark Twain Pages, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley:
    • : Mrs. Maybrick purchased these fly-papers from two chemists' shops, where she was well known. 1896, The Maybrick Case, a Statement of the Case as a Whole:
    • We get rid of flies with fly-spray and by hanging up fly-paper. 2012, Roald Dahl, Roald Dahl: Three Tales of Magic and Mischief, page 306:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
fly-papers Number=Plur lexicographic

fly-paper en · VERB

Meanings

  1. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of flypaper.
    alt of flypaper
    • For people who fear getting fly-papered by a first job, the Tremayne case makes it clear that the first job can be a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. 1983, Auren Uris, John J. Tarrant, Career stages: surmounting the crises of working life, page 47:
    • Be firm, Woody, don't get fly-papered into staying on here. 1976, Stephen Longstreet, God and Sarah Pedlock, page 356:
    • Once Pleurobrachia senses it has 'fly-papered' a copepod onto a tentacle, it spins its body to rapidly wrap its tentacles around the body, somehow wiping the copepod across the single body opening to the central gut. 2009, Iain M. Suthers, David Rissik, Plankton:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
fly-papering Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
fly-papered Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
fly-papered Tense=Past lexicographic
fly-papers Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic