How to Use housefly in a Sentence

housefly

noun
  • Keck noted a housefly can go from egg to adult in about a week.
    — René A. Guzman, ExpressNews.com, 9 Dec. 2020
  • The bake-off could be drawn out to pull the wings off of housefly Powell.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2025
  • On the front, there are four or five of these fur tufts, which kind of remind you of a housefly.
    — Madison Feller, ELLE, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Cluster flies may look like houseflies at first glance, but there are a few easy ways to tell them apart.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 27 Jan. 2026
  • In a dusty open-air building with houseflies buzzing, Marines here received a call for help.
    — Dan Lamothe, Washington Post, 16 Apr. 2018
  • Some folks just can’t help being loud in bed, but noisy liaisons can lead to a swift death… at least for a housefly.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 23 July 2012
  • To put this in perspective, that’s about equal to the weight of a housefly on your hand on Earth.
    — Daniel Oberhaus, WIRED, 24 June 2019
  • This option is not made for killing bugs larger than a housefly and works best on mosquitoes.
    — Kat De Naoum, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 Mar. 2023
  • The total force is roughly the same as the weight of a housefly landing on your hand on Earth.
    — Robert Z. Pearlman, Scientific American, 23 July 2019
  • Don't worry—there's not enough booze in here to intoxicate a housefly.
    — Josh Miller, Southern Living, 20 Dec. 2025
  • Maggots are the larvae of various fly species, such as fruit flies, houseflies, cheese flies and blowflies.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 8 Jan. 2024
  • Barrett tossed up a high floater, and Howard rose higher still and swatted the ball as if slapping a housefly.
    — Michael Powell, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2020
  • One poster from the campaign shows a forlorn pacifier, abandoned and being soiled by a housefly.
    — Robert Krulwich, National Geographic, 26 Aug. 2016
  • The predators hunt grubs, aphids, and houseflies — other pests that annoy at outdoor dinners and in your garden.
    — Jean Nick, Good Housekeeping, 21 June 2017
  • Larger flies, like houseflies, are after decaying matter such as food waste and pet droppings.
    — Sharon Wu, USA Today, 4 July 2026
  • Japanese quails were also among the list of animals that were tested along with insects such as houseflies and moths.
    — Matt McNulty, PEOPLE.com, 30 July 2019
  • Basil discourages mosquitoes and houseflies, while mint helps push back ants and mosquitoes.
    — Lauren Jarvis-Gibson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 May 2026
  • This housefly-size frog, Paedophryne amauensis, has snatched the record as the world’s smallest vertebrate.
    — Amy Barth, Discover Magazine, 16 Jan. 2013
  • Somehow, someway, my wife and I have worked from home part-time while corralling a 3-year-old who has the patience of a housefly.
    — Pete Croatto, Good Housekeeping, 4 June 2020
  • Venus Fly Trap As its name suggests, this carnivorous plant feeds on both houseflies and fruit flies.
    — Kate McGregor, House Beautiful, 13 June 2023
  • People can be forgiving, our attention spans rival the life cycle of a housefly — one of the plot’s premises — move on.
    — Karen Heller, Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2023
  • New World screwworm flies, also known as NWS, are about the size of common houseflies.
    — Janet Loehrke, USA Today, 9 June 2026
  • Cluster flies look similar to houseflies, but are bigger, move more slowly, and are attracted to warm shelters.
    — Rae Ford, Martha Stewart, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Many of the bugs that humans encounter — the mosquitoes and houseflies, cockroaches and bed bugs — are, in a word, disgusting.
    — Benji Jones, Vox, 18 Sep. 2024
  • New World screwworm flies, the size of a housefly, lay eggs inside warm-blooded animals' open wounds or body openings, such as eyes, nose or mouth.
    — Eduardo Cuevas, USA Today, 6 June 2026
  • Keep an eye out—particularly in the Northwest—for carrot rust flies, which look like small green houseflies with yellow heads and red eyes.
    — The Editors Of Organic Life, Good Housekeeping, 30 Aug. 2017
  • On Adam’s computer screen, the ship now looked like a robotic housefly, its proboscis probing toward an enormous, crumbly piece of gray bread.
    — Chris Wright, Wired, 8 June 2020
  • The parasitic fungus is known to infect other fly species, including the common housefly, but this is the first time researchers have studied it in fruit flies.
    — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 18 Dec. 2017
  • The new discovery, currently known as Thiomargarita magnifica is longer than a housefly.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 15 Mar. 2022
  • The series follows the adventures of Lloyd B Fly, a housefly and the middle child of 451.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 22 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'housefly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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