canker fly

English

Noun

canker fly (plural canker flies)

1. (archaic) A fly that preys on fruit.
   • 1845 [1796], Edward Henry Noel, transl., Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces: Or, The Married Life, Death, and Wedding of the Advocate of the Poor, Firmian Stanislaus Sibenkas̈, translation of original by Jean Paul, page 240:

     Siebenkäs, in a voice of wrath, now turned bis seat of judgment into a penitent's stool for the Venner, abusing him as a canker-fly of female buds, a dove-hawk, a house-breaker of the treasures of marriage.

   • 1866, Rowland Williams, The Hebrew Prophets Translated Afresh from the Original, page 21:

     And I requite to you the years which the locust ate, the canker-fly, and the fledged locust, and the young locust, my great host which I sent among you.

   • 1910 [1831], anonymous translator, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, translation of original by Victor Hugo, page 176:

     That gnawing canker-fly, the printed book, sucks the life-blood out of the great stone pile.

   • 1890, Great Britain. Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular Reports: Annual series, page 21:

     In many districts, moreover, the appearance of the "canker" fly had a very prejudicial effect upon the quality of the oil.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “canker fly”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)