gadfly

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English

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WOTD – 22 June 2022

Etymology

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A deer botfly (Cephenemyia stimulator), a type of gadfly (sense 1).
An unidentified horsefly (Tabanus species), also known as a gadfly (sense 1).

From gad (“(obsolete) sharp point, spike; (dialectal) sharp-pointed rod for driving cattle, horses, etc., goad”) +‎ fly, in the sense of a fly which irritates cattle, etc., by biting them, similar to the prodding of a goad.[1] Gad is derived from Middle English gad, gadde (“metal spike with a sharp point; stick with a sharp point for driving animals, goad; metal bar or rod, ingot; (by extension) lump of material; metal rod for measuring land; (by extension) unit of linear measure equal to about 10 to 16 feet”),[2] borrowed from Old Norse gaddr (“spike; goad”), from Proto-Germanic *gazdaz (“spike; goad”), further etymology uncertain.

Sense 2.1.1 (“person who upsets the status quo”) may allude to the Apology by the Greek philosopher Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 B.C.E.), where he describes Socrates (c. 470 – 399 B.C.E.) acting as a goad to the Athenian political scene like a gadfly (Ancient Greek μῠ́ωψ (múōps)) arousing a sluggish horse.[3]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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gadfly (plural gadflies)

  1. Any dipterous (“two-winged”) insect or fly of the family Oestridae (commonly known as a botfly) or Tabanidae (horsefly), noted for irritating animals by buzzing about them, and biting them to suck their blood; a gadbee.
    (botfly): Synonym: warble fly
    (horsefly): Synonyms: stoat-fly, stout
    • 1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London: [s.n.], 1870], →OCLC, page 147:
      He that made that ryme in jeſt, little conſidered what a gad-fly may doe in earneſt. It is ſmall wiſedome to contemne the ſmalleſt enemy; the gad-fly is a little creature, but ſome little creatures be ſtingers; […]
    • a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 65, lines 498–499:
      Light fly his ſlumbers, if perchance a flight / Of angry gad-flies faſten on the herd; […]
    • 1841, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay I. History.”, in Essays, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, pages 18–19:
      The nomads of Africa are constrained to wander by the attacks of the gadfly, which drives the cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy season and drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions.
    • 2005, Rafael Argullol, “Introduction”, in Yolanda Gamboa, transl., The End of the World as a Work of Art: A Western Story, Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, →ISBN, page 48:
      Vengeful Hera transformed her [Io] into an animal (a beautiful cow), and imposed upon her the company of a gadfly to sting her continuously, thus forcing her to escape on an endless pilgrimage.
  2. (figurative, also attributive)
    1. A person or thing that irritates or instigates.
      1. (specifically) A person who upsets the status quo by posing novel or upsetting questions, or attempts to stimulate innovation by being an irritant.
        Synonyms: see Thesaurus:maverick
        • 1977, Morris Kline, Why the Professor Can’t Teach: Mathematics and the Dilemma of University Education, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 238:
          There is a function for the gadfly who poses questions that many specialists would like to overlook. Polemics is healthy.
        • 2012, Andrew Martin, “The World of Charles Pearson”, in Underground Overground: A Passenger’s History of the Tube, London: Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 26–27:
          What was required now was the intervention of some men who were not gadflies. […] The logic of [Charles] Pearson's arguments was accepted, up to a point, by a consortium of businessmen. In August 1854, […] the consortium obtained royal assent for […] the Metropolitan Railway. […] In 1859, when it looked as though the Metropolitan Railway Company would be wound up with no line built, he [Pearson] wrote a pamphlet: A Twenty Minutes Letter to the Citizens of London in Favour of the Metropolitan Railway and City Station. Gadfly he may have been, but by this 'letter' he persuaded the Corporation of London to invest £200,000 in the line, a most unusual example of a public body investing in a Victorian railway.
        • 2021 April 10, John Leland, “This heroin-using professor wants to change how we think about drugs”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 May 2022:
          Dr. [Carl] Hart, 54, the first tenured African-American science professor at Columbia, is a gadfly among drug researchers and a rock star among advocates for decriminalizing drugs.
    2. Synonym of gadabout (“a person who restlessly moves from place to place, seeking amusement or the companionship of others”)
      Synonym: social butterfly
    3. (derogatory, slang) A person who takes without giving back; a bloodsucker.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:scrounger
      He’s a regular gadfly and takes advantage of his friend’s generosity.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “gadfly, n. and adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “gadfly, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ “gad(de, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ Plato (1966) “Apology”, in Harold North Fowler, transl., Plato in Twelve Volumes (Loeb Classical Library), volume I, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, section 30e: “For if you put me to death, you will not easily find another, who, to use a rather absurd figure, attaches himself to the city as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size and needs to be aroused by stinging.”

Further reading

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