flea-ridden
adjEtymology From flea + -ridden.
1
Infested with fleas.
- Two or three times a week a sort of Italian eil-wagen, a funereal and tumble-down, flea-ridden coach, with windows boarded up so high that, when seated, you cannot see out of them, and closed hermetically, after Italian fashion, shambles along at jog-trot pace between the two towns, and takes a livelong day, from early morning to late at night, to perform the journey.1861, Edward Dicey, chapter 14, in Rome in 1860, London: Macmillan, pages 207–208:
- He threw Dormer the paper, stooped to pat the flea-ridden puppy of the hotel, and went in.1913, D. K. Broster, G. W. Taylor, The Vision Splendid, London: John Murray, Book II, Chapter 15 (1):
1 more example
- “Tell them, then, that if they don't go...I’ll knock all their teeth out...I’ll tear their ears off...I’ll hang the lot of them...and that I'll burn down their entire flea-ridden village. Understand?”2002, Karel Čapek, translated by David Wyllie, The War with the Newts, published 1936, Book One, Chapter I:
2
Mangy; filthy.
- Synonyms
- flea-bitten