flypaper
/ˈflaɪˌpeɪpɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.62 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A strip of paper coated with a sticky, often poisonous, substance that catches and kills flies that land on it.
Countable; Uncountable
verb
To cause something to become stuck with, or as if with, flypaper.
Example Sentences
- ""What did I tell you? The thing clings like a flypaper," Josella observed to me."
- "He gets flypapered by a task that should be turned over to a subordinate."
- "Cover painting that flypapered the eyes were very important to G-8 sales, and Frederick Blakeslee's mixing of fantasy with the realistic texture of machines had a hypnotic effect on impressionable coin-holders."
- "In 'The Vertical Ladder," a hapless adolescent is flypapered fast in perpetuity, a mean little speck, on the mast of implacability."
- "Hysterical parties on her dorm floor concussed the hallways with music and produced a semi-permanent layer of trodden chips flypapered onto the carpet by spilled beer."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈflaɪˌpeɪpɚ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Phrases
flypaper strip
flypaper theory
Synonyms
fly ribbon