maggots

noun

plural of maggot
as in whims
a sudden impulsive and apparently unmotivated idea or action the last maggot he got in his head resulted in a disastrous extramarital affair

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of maggots Students came together as a community to ask Cook County School District 130 Superintendent and the board of education to take immediate action to eradicate cockroaches, mold, mice and maggots from their schools. — Olivia Stevens, Chicago Tribune, 1 Oct. 2026 The creamy white larvae are maggots and have no wings, wing buds, or legs on their soft, tapering bodies. — Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Sep. 2026 Role Model covered ‘maggots for brains,’ and Sienna Spiro covered my song ‘less’ the other day. — Hannah Dailey, Billboard, 27 Aug. 2026 Telltale signs of a screwworm infection include growing wounds or lesions and feeding maggots on living animals. — Mateo Rosiles, USA Today, 24 Aug. 2026 The screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. — Fabiola Sánchez, Fortune, 23 Aug. 2026 Unlike most of the maggots, these ones develop in living flesh. — Fiction Non Fiction, Literary Hub, 13 Aug. 2026 The resulting maggots hatch within a day and begin ravenously feasting on the living flesh of their victims. — Beth Mole, ArsTechnica, 7 Aug. 2026 The Medfly targets more than 250 types of fruits and vegetables by laying eggs inside them that hatch into maggots, which make the produce inedible. — Nollyanne Delacruz, Mercury News, 24 July 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for maggots
  1. whims
  2. bees
  3. notions
Noun
  • There are many reasons the United States needs clear, stable regulations on artificial intelligence, rather than relying on the whims of a leader.
    — Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2026
  • Behold the plight of the Ryan Murphy character, cursed to behave nonsensically and flit wildly from plotline to plotline based on the writer’s whims.
    — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 3 Sep. 2026
Definition of whims
Noun
  • Many bees are used at avocado farms in Queensland to pollinate the crops, so the thefts could have a knock-on effect on other food production.
    — Chas Newkey-Burden, TheWeek, 27 Sep. 2026
  • This past spring, the research team surveyed native bees at 26 forests across the Northeast, documenting the plants bees visited before any restoration began.
    — Stephen Underwood, Hartford Courant, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of bees
Noun
  • One sticking point that the scores of speeches revealed was the scratchiness between two vital notions — multilateralism and sovereignty.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 28 Sep. 2026
  • And there’s also all these preconceived notions about you that are out there that are associated with [you] because your body is your art, right?
    — Tanya Fedak, Variety, 26 Sep. 2026
Definition of notions

Browse Nearby Words

maggot
maggots
magi
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Maggots.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/maggots. Accessed 5 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

More Commonly Mispronounced Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is it 'nerve-racking' or 'nerve-wracking'?

What's the difference between 'fascism' and 'socialism'?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Even More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are)

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
name tags
Words Named After People Quiz Find out who’s behind "leotard," "morphine," an...
See All