flypaper meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

flypaper

noun

US /ˈflaɪˌpeɪpɚ/

Etymology From fly + paper.

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

"What did I tell you? The thing clings like a flypaper," Josella observed to me.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 105:

verb

Etymology From fly + paper.

To cause something to become stuck with, or as if with, flypaper.

He gets flypapered by a task that should be turned over to a subordinate.1967, Auren Uris, Keeping young in business, page 134:
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.1970, Cross & Cockade Journal - Volume 11, page 373:

2 more examples

In 'The Vertical Ladder," a hapless adolescent is flypapered fast in perpetuity, a mean little speck, on the mast of implacability.1996, Gilbert Alter-Gilbert, Life and Limb: Selected Tales of Peril, Predicament, and Dire Distress, 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.2010, The Malahat Review - Issues 170-173, page 20: