## Meanings
1. The small, soft, legless larva of a fly, often found in rotting meat or waste.
2. An insulting term for a person regarded as contemptible or worthless.

## Examples
- The bin was crawling with maggots after a week in the summer heat.
- The drill sergeant screamed at the recruits, calling them maggots.

## Derived Forms
- antimaggot
- demaggot
- magat
- maggot-pated
- maggot-pie
- maggoted
- maggotiness
- maggoting
- maggotish
- maggotless
- maggotlike
- maggotorium

## Related Forms
- mawk
- mawkish

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: magot
- Root: *maþō
- Root: *maþô

## Etymology
From Middle English magot, magat, maked, probably a metathetic alteration of maddock, maðek (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Proto-West Germanic *maþō, from Proto-Germanic *maþô, from the Proto-Indo-European root *mat, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made + -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask, Icelandic maðkur (“worm, grub, maggot”). The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in th…

## AI Etymology
Maggot is from Middle English magot, magat, maked, probably a metathetic alteration of maddock, maðek (“worm", "maggot”), originally a diminutive form of a base represented by Old English maþa (Scots mathe), from Proto-West Germanic *maþō, from Proto-Germanic *maþô, from the Proto-Indo-European root *mat, which was used in insect names, equivalent to made + -ock. Near-cognates include Dutch made, German Made and Swedish mask, Icelandic maðkur (“worm, grub, maggot”). The use of maggot to mean a fanciful or whimsical thing derives from the folk belief that a whimsical or crotchety person had maggots in th… The analysis is mainly morphological: the modern form is built from the named base and affix. Important recorded forms include magot (Middle English), *maþō (Proto-West Germanic), and *maþô (Proto-Germanic). Current senses include the small, soft, legless larva of a fly, often found in rotting meat or waste and an insulting term for a person regarded as contemptible or worthless.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities

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