bluebottle

[ bloo-bot-l ]

noun
  1. a composite plant, Centaurea cyanus, having narrow leaves and blue flower heads.

  1. Australian. Portuguese man-of-war.

Origin of bluebottle

1
First recorded in 1545–55; blue + bottle1

Words Nearby bluebottle

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use bluebottle in a sentence

  • Yet, although he could take no exercise, he used to eat no less than seventy large bluebottle flies every evening.

  • Paying not the least attention to the big bluebottle fly that buzzed her nose, Sue stretched full-length and dozed in the sun.

    The Duck-footed Hound | James Arthur Kjelgaard
  • The bluebottle fly, tiring of its futile efforts to annoy her, buzzed importantly off in search of a more responsive victim.

    The Duck-footed Hound | James Arthur Kjelgaard
  • From time to time, the bluebottle and the flesh fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp.

    The Life of the Fly | J. Henri Fabre
  • I put the bluebottle's eggs to hatch on a piece of meat and leave the worms to do their work as they please.

    The Life of the Fly | J. Henri Fabre

British Dictionary definitions for bluebottle

bluebottle

/ (ˈbluːˌbɒtəl) /


noun
  1. another name for the blowfly

  2. any of various blue-flowered plants, esp the cornflower

  1. British an informal word for a policeman

  2. Australian and NZ an informal name for Portuguese man-of-war

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