SPANISH FLY Definition & Meaning

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Spanish fly

noun

Also called cantharides. a preparation of powdered blister beetles, especially the Spanish fly, used medicinally as a counterirritant, diuretic, and aphrodisiac.
Also ��貹��i��·�ڱ��. Also called cantharis. a common European blister beetle, Cantharis ( Lytta ) vesicatoria, that yields this preparation.

Spanish fly

noun

a European blister beetle, Lytta vesicatoria (family Meloidae ), the dried bodies of which yield the pharmaceutical product cantharides
another name for cantharides

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of Spanish fly¹

First recorded in 1400–50; so called from the fact that the beetles are found in abundance in Spain

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Example Sentences

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The column’s jokey tone — violence against women is ever so funny, right? — might recall Bill Cosby’s onstage bits about drugging women with the supposed aphrodisiac Spanish fly.

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Jurors at Bill Cosby’s sex assault trial in Pennsylvania will hear his explosive deposition testimony about quaaludes but not his references to the supposed aphrodisiac Spanish fly.

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Disco biscuits, Spanish fly and quaaludes could be on the agenda when Bill Cosby is in court for the latest showdown over evidence in his Pennsylvania sexual-assault case.

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“From age 11 on up to death we will still be searching for Spanish fly,” he said.

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Cosby says in the “Childhood” book he and his friends needed the Spanish fly potion because girls were “never in the mood for us.”

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