Crossword clues for gadflies
gadflies
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gadfly \Gad"fly`\ (g[a^]d"fl[imac]`), n.; pl. Gadflies. [Gad + fly.] (Zo["o]l.) Any dipterous insect of the genus Oestrus, and allied genera of botflies.
Note: The sheep gadfly ( Oestrus ovis) deposits its young in the nostrils of sheep, and the larv[ae] develop in the frontal sinuses. The common species which infests cattle ( Hypoderma bovis) deposits its eggs upon or in the skin where the larv[ae] or bots live and produce sores called wormels. The gadflies of the horse produce the intestinal parasites called bots. See Botfly, and Bots. The true horseflies are often erroneously called gadflies, and the true gadflies are sometimes incorrectly called breeze flies.
Gadfly petrel (Zo["o]l.), one of several small petrels of the genus Oestrelata.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of gadfly English)
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "gadflies".
Besides which there stirred not the least breath of wind, and flies and gadflies did swarm in prodigious quantity, which, settling upon her excoriate flesh, stung her so shrewdly that 'twas as if she received so many stabs with a javelin, and she was ever restlessly feeling her sores with her hands, and cursing herself, her life, her lover, and the scholar.
Only this: that what with the heat of the sun above and the floor beneath her, and the scarification of her flesh in every part by the flies and gadflies, that flesh, which in the night had dispelled the gloom by its whiteness, was now become red as madder, and so besprent with clots of blood, that whoso had seen her would have deemed her the most hideous object in the world.
Big-time gamblers and top-dollar prostitutes rubbed shoulders (and other things) with Chicago's leading social gadflies, most of whom were looking for one last thrill on the way to senility or a first thrill on the road to adulthood.