blowfly
/ˈbloʊˌflaɪ/
"blowfly" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“blowfly” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
Corpus desk
Index EN-blowfly · blowfly · English
blowfly · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | blowfly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbloʊˌflaɪ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “blowfly” in English
Rare enough to double-check
blowfly is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbloʊˌflaɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for blowfly, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is blowfly, spelled B-L-O-W-F-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Any of various flies of the family Calliphoridae that lay their eggs in rotting meat, dung, or open wounds.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how blowfly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one. Pulling off its legs, she placed it with the hornet, and both lay side by side unprotestingly.
What is a blow-fly? That is what I thought when I saw them: blow-flies. Is there something dead around here that has not yet begun to stink? I cannot discover where they are coming from; they just appear in the light of the lamp, attracted by the warmth, I suppose, and fly up against the bulb and then drop stunned on the table and flop about groggily unti…
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.