flypaper

[ flahy-pey-per ]

noun

paper designed to destroy flies by catching them on its sticky surface or poisoning them on contact.

Origin of flypaper

First recorded in 1840–50; fly¹ + paper

Words Nearby flypaper

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use flypaper in a sentence

More begets more, and spending tends to stick at higher levels, which is why the phenomenon is known as “the flypaper effect.”
The Great Medicaid Swindle | Nick Gillespie | October 24, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
But they were as impotent as two flies that had rolled in the sticky slime of some super-flypaper.
The Raid on the Termites | Paul Ernst
He prowls around and challenges man until he comes to the flypaper; he then slinks away.
Autobiography of a YOGI | Paramhansa Yogananda
President Cleveland—And are you using that flypaper according to directions?
Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions | Slason Thompson
But he kept on and drew nearer and nearer, breathing hard and gathering flies like a flypaper.
The Wheels of Chance | H. G. Wells

The agricultural model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for these busybodies.
The Wrecker | Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

British Dictionary definitions for flypaper

flypaper

/ (ˈflaɪˌpeɪpə) /

noun

paper with a sticky and poisonous coating, usually hung from the ceiling to trap flies

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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