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
Elm Farm has produced bluebottle larvae for decades, as bait for recreational fishers.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 14, 2015
Kai Kupferschmidt Mick Grant, a farmer in the United Kingdom, has long raised bluebottle larvae for anglers.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 14, 2015
But like a bluebottle repeatedly bashing its face against a windowpane, it continually tries and fails to turn him into yet another easily digested celebrity.
From The Guardian • Jul. 8, 2012
Every creature bigger than a bluebottle was sheltering from the heat.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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.
