Flea FLEA, n. [See Flee and Fly.] An insect of the genus Pulex. It
has two eyes and six feet; the feelers are like threads; the rostrum is
inflected, setaceous, and armed with a string. The flea is remarkable
for its agility, leaping to a surprising distance, and its bite is
very troublesome.
flea
O.E. fleah, from P.Gmc. *flaukh- (cf. O.N. flo, M.Du. vlo, Ger. floh),
perhaps related to O.E. fleon "to flee," with a notion of "the jumping
parasite." Flea market (1920), especially the Fr. march? aux puces in
Paris, so-called "because there are so many second-hand articles sold
of all kinds that they are believed to gather fleas."
flea n. 1 a small wingless jumping insect of the order Siphonaptera, feeding on human and other blood. 2 a (in full flea beetle) a small jumping beetle infesting hops, cabbages, etc. b (in
full water flea) daphnia. Phrases and idioms: flea-bite 1 the bite of a flea. 2 a trivial injury or inconvenience. flea-bitten 1 bitten by or infested with fleas. 2 shabby.
flea-bug US = FLEA 2a. flea-circus a show of performing fleas. flea-collar an insecticidal collar for pets. a flea in one's ear a sharp reproof. flea market a street market selling second-hand
goods etc. flea-pit a dingy dirty place, esp. a run-down cinema. flea-wort any of several plants supposed to drive away fleas. Etymology: OE flea, fleah f. Gmc
Flea
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
SWIFT: Poetry, A Rhapsody.
Flea \Flea\, n. [OE. fle, flee, AS. fle['a], fle['a]h; akin to
D. ?, OHG. fl?h, G. floh, Icel. fl?, Russ. blocha; prob. from
the root of E. flee. ? 84. See Flee.] (Zo["o]l.)
An insect belonging to the genus Pulex, of the order
Aphaniptera. Fleas are destitute of wings, but have the power
of leaping energetically. The bite is poisonous to most
persons. The human flea ({Pulex irritans}), abundant in
Europe, is rare in America, where the dog flea ({P. canis})
takes its place. See Aphaniptera, and Dog flea. See
Illustration in Appendix.
A flea in the ear, an unwelcome hint or unexpected reply,
annoying like a flea; an irritating repulse; as, to put a
flea in one's ear; to go away with a flea in one's ear.
Beach flea, Black flea, etc. See under Beach, etc.
FLEA
fle (par`osh; compare Arabic barghut, "flea," and barghash, "mosquito"
(1Sa 24:14; 26:20); kinnim (Ex 8:16), "lice," the Revised
Version, margin "sandflies" or "fleas"; Septuagint skniphes, probably best
rendered "gnat"; see GNAT; LICE):
In 1Sa 24 Saul seeks David in the wilderness of En-gedi, and
David, after cutting off the skirt of Saul's robe in the cave, calls out
to him, "After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou
pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea" (24:14). Again in 1Sa 26:20
Saul seeks David in the wilderness of Ziph, and David after taking the spear
and cruse from beside Saul while he slept, cries out to him, ".... the king
of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in
the mountains." The flea is here used as a symbol of David's insignificance,
coupled perhaps, in the second passage, with a thought of the difficulty that
Saul had in laying hands on him. In Encyclopedia Biblica Cheyne finds fault
with a similar interpretation given in DB on the ground that it is absurd
that David should refer to hunting "a single flea," and proposes to change
par`osh 'echadh "a flea," to pere' midhbar, "wild ass of the desert." The
writer will only say that no observant resident of Palestine would consider
the textual alteration to be called for.
Linnaeus recognized two species of flea, Pulex irritans, the common parasite of
man, and Pulex (Sarcopsylla) penetrans, the tropical and sub-tropical jigger
flea. More than a hundred species are now listed, and the recent discovery
that certain fleas are instrumental in the transmission of the plague has
given a new impetus to the study of these tiny pests. A flea that is often
commoner in houses than Pulex irritans is the "dog and cat flea," variously
known as Pulex serraticeps, Pulex canis, Pulex felis or Ctenocephalus canis.
Alfred Ely Day
Flea
David at the cave of Adullam thus addressed his persecutor Saul
(1 Sam. 24:14): "After whom is the king of Israel come out?
after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea?" He
thus speaks of himself as the poor, contemptible object of the
monarch's pursuit, a "worthy object truly for an expedition of
the king of Israel with his picked troops!" This insect is in
Eastern language the popular emblem of insignificance. In 1 Sam.
26:20 the LXX. read "come out to seek my life" instead of "to
seek a flea."
On most web browsers you can double click any word on this page to see what definitions I have for that word.
This dictionary server is not an authoratative source of information for anything. Like almost everything at sorabji.com, I set this up for my own purposes. In this case the purpose is to
browse words and ideas at random. An automatically generated page that produces 1000 Random Words
is my gateway to this resource. I also attempt a word of the day project,
in which I attempt to write something about myself starting with interesting words that I find through the Wordswarm Random Words Pages. I have made
available the complete 1828 Webster's Dictionary, which many feel is the greatest English dictionary ever published.
Other random links of mine include the Sorabji.com Random Link, which sends you to one of
over 7,000 pages on my web sites; the Face Server produces random images of
human faces; clicking the Random WAYD link shows you a random posting to my "What Are You Doing?" board; the Random USPS
Mailbox link sends you to a page with information about a random mailbox; and the random pictures page page of sorabji.com shows one of over 11,000 random images any time you load the page. On an unrelated note, I have begun making several thousand pages of legal documents searchable.