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Synonyms

fruit fly

American  

noun

  1. any of numerous small dipterous insects of the family Tephritidae, the larvae of which feed on the fruit of various plants.

  2. vinegar fly.

  3. drosophila.

fruit fly British  

noun

  1. any small dipterous fly of the family Trypetidae , which feed on and lay their eggs in plant tissues See also gallfly

  2. any dipterous fly of the genus Drosophila See drosophila

"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

Etymology

Origin of fruit fly

First recorded in 1745–55

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.

During the first few hours after fertilization, a fruit fly embryo rapidly divides its nuclei, producing thousands of cells in a short time.

From Science Daily • Feb. 27, 2026

In the field, those 20-inch black-painted aluminum wheels wouldn’t stay pretty for long; those running boards would have the life expectancy of a fruit fly.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 6, 2026

The goal is to keep the oriental fruit fly from spreading to more crops while working to eliminate the pest.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 6, 2024

We have a million times as many brain cells, or neurons, than the fruit fly which was studied.

From BBC • Oct. 2, 2024

In the 1950s, Ed Lewis, a fruit fly geneticist at Caltech, began to reconstruct the formation of fruit fly embryos.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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.