maggot

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The small, soft, legless larva of a fly, often found in rotting meat or waste.

   The bin was crawling with maggots after a week in the summer heat.

2. 2
   noun

   An insulting term for a person regarded as contemptible or worthless.

   The drill sergeant screamed at the recruits, calling them maggots.

Simplified etymology

Maggot, recorded from the late Middle Ages, is probably an alteration of the earlier maddock, meaning “maggot” or “earthworm.” Its form may have been influenced by Maggot or Magot, pet forms of the names Margery and Margaret.

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…

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