fruit fly
Americannoun
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any of numerous small dipterous insects of the family Tephritidae, the larvae of which feed on the fruit of various plants.
noun
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any small dipterous fly of the family Trypetidae , which feed on and lay their eggs in plant tissues See also gallfly
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any dipterous fly of the genus Drosophila See drosophila
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.
Using a well-established fruit fly model, the research team discovered that a neuron's resistance to degeneration is closely tied to how it processes sugar.
From Science Daily
Levine and her colleagues set out to answer this question by studying fruit flies known as Drosophila melanogaster.
From Science Daily
To see why this broader approach matters, consider fruit flies living in very different parts of the world.
From Science Daily
The study also demonstrates the value of fruit fly models for studying neurological diseases, including age-related conditions, Zhai noted.
From Science Daily
Even more strikingly, fruit flies genetically engineered to carry the same four naked mole-rat-specific mutations in human cGAS lived longer than flies with the normal version of the enzyme.
From Science Daily
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.
