Flyswatter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A handheld device with a flat striking surface used to kill flies and other airborne insects
2. An implement consisting of a handle and a mesh or solid head designed to swat and dispatch flying pests
3. A flat-headed tool wielded by hand to crush and eliminate flying insects on contact

Etymology: The flyswatter is a plain compound, and its history is mostly a matter of two English words meeting. "Fly" comes down from Old English "flēoge," which belongs to the same ancient family as the verb to fly, and "swatter" is built from "swat," a verb meaning to strike sharply. Its ending "-er" marks the thing that performs the action, so a swatter is literally a striker, and a flyswatter is a striker of flies. The "-er" ending has a longer journey than the rest of the word. It descends from a Latin suffix "-ārius," which passed into Old French as "-ier" and then into Middle English as "-er." Many everyday English nouns of the kind "baker" or "hunter" carry the same ending, so the flyswatter shares its last syllable with a long list of ordinary tools and workers.

Synonyms: fly swatter, swatter