flypaper

English

Etymology

From fly +‎ paper.

Noun

flypaper (countable and uncountable, plural flypapers)

1. A strip of paper coated with a sticky, often poisonous, substance that catches and kills flies that land on it

Synonyms

• fly ribbon

Derived terms

• flypaper strip
• flypaper theory

Translations

flypaper

• Bulgarian: мухоловка (bg) f (muholovka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 捕蠅紙 / 捕蝇纸 (zh) (bǔyíngzhǐ)

• Czech: mucholapka (cs) f
• Dutch: vliegenstrip (nl)
• Estonian: kärbsepaber, kärbselint
• Finnish: kärpäspaperi (fi)
• French: papier tue-mouches (fr) m, papier à mouches m, papier colle-mouches m, attrape-mouche (fr) m
• German: Fliegenpapier n, Fliegenfänger (de) m, Honigstreifen m
• Hungarian: légypapír (hu)
• Italian: acchiappamosche m (invariable)
• Japanese: 蝿取り紙 (はえとりがみ, haetorigami)
• Polish: lep na muchy (pl) m, lep (pl) m
• Russian: липу́чка для мух f (lipúčka dlja mux)
• Slovak: mucholapka f
• Spanish: papel matamoscas m
• Swedish: flugpapper (sv) n

Verb

flypaper (third-person singular simple present flypapers, present participle flypapering, simple past and past participle flypapered)

1. To cause something to become stuck with, or as if with, flypaper.
   • 1967, Auren Uris, Keeping young in business, page 134:

     He gets flypapered by a task that should be turned over to a subordinate.

   • 1970, Cross & Cockade Journal - Volume 11, page 373:

     Cover painting that flypapered the eyes were very important to G-8 sales, and Frederick Blakeslee's mixing of fantasy with the realistic texture of machines had a hypnotic effect on impressionable coin-holders.

   • 1996, Gilbert Alter-Gilbert, Life and Limb: Selected Tales of Peril, Predicament, and Dire Distress, page 20:

     In 'The Vertical Ladder," a hapless adolescent is flypapered fast in perpetuity, a mean little speck, on the mast of implacability.

   • 2010, The Malahat Review - Issues 170-173, page 20:

     Hysterical parties on her dorm floor concussed the hallways with music and produced a semi-permanent layer of trodden chips flypapered onto the carpet by spilled beer.