maggot

Meaning

Noun

1. A soft, legless larva of a fly or other dipterous insect, that often eats decomposing organic matter.
2. A worthless person.
3. A whimsy or fancy.
4. (slang) A fan of the American metal band Slipknot.

Verb

To rid (an animal) of maggots.

Adj

Alternative form of maggoted (“drunk; intoxicated”)

Synonyms

worm

🪱

grub

larva

caterpillar

🐛

insect

whim

caprice

mosquito larva

gentle

germ

kink

lice

louse

maggots

moodiness

putrid

quirk

rotten

vagary

whimsicalness

whimsy

wriggler

sprog

measuring worm

tetchiness

John Fletcher

wor n

bacteria

riceworm

beetle

🪲

crankiness

creepy-crawly

crotchet

crotchetiness

fancy

freak

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈmæɡət/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: magot

Cognate with Old English: maþa

Cognate with Scots: mathe

Cognate with Dutch: made

Cognate with German: Made

Cognate with Swedish: mask

In summary

From Middle English magot, magotte, probably Anglo-Norman metathetic alteration of maddock (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Frankish *maþō, from common 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.
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.