bluebottle
Americannoun
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a composite plant, Centaurea cyanus, having narrow leaves and blue flower heads.
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Australian. Portuguese man-of-war.
noun
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another name for the blowfly
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any of various blue-flowered plants, esp the cornflower
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an informal word for a policeman
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an informal name for Portuguese man-of-war
Etymology
Origin of bluebottle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
My mother laughed at me one fateful beach day as she pulled a Pacific man o’ war jellyfish — known in Australia as a bluebottle — from my body as I screamed.
From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2022
Kai Kupferschmidt Mick Grant, a farmer in the United Kingdom, has long raised bluebottle larvae for anglers.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 14, 2015
Elm Farm has produced bluebottle larvae for decades, as bait for recreational fishers.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 14, 2015
The morning I stood on the bend of the stairs and watched a spider trap then eat a bluebottle.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 1, 2012
One of them wailed and whispered, the other buzzed like a fat and angry bluebottle at a windowpane, but the voices said, as one person, “Thief! Give it back! Stop! Thief!”
From "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
