flea-ridden

flea-ridden

See also: flearidden

English

Alternative forms

• flearidden

Etymology

flea +‎ -ridden

Adjective

flea-ridden (comparative more flea-ridden, superlative most flea-ridden)

1. Infested with fleas.
   • 1861, Edward Dicey, Rome in 1860, London: Macmillan, Chapter 14, pp. 207-208,

     Two or three times a week a sort of Italian eil-wagen, a funereal and tumble-down, flea-ridden coach, with windows boarded up so high that, when seated, you cannot see out of them, and closed hermetically, after Italian fashion, shambles along at jog-trot pace between the two towns, and takes a livelong day, from early morning to late at night, to perform the journey.

   • 1913, D. K. Broster and G. W. Taylor, The Vision Splendid, London: John Murray, Book II, Chapter 15 (1),

     He threw Dormer the paper, stooped to pat the flea-ridden puppy of the hotel, and went in.

   • 2002, David Wyllie (translator), The War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek, Book One, Chapter I,

     “Tell them, then, that if they don't go...I’ll knock all their teeth out...I’ll tear their ears off...I’ll hang the lot of them...and that I'll burn down their entire flea-ridden village. Understand?”

2. Mangy; filthy.

Synonyms

• flea-bitten

Translations

infested with fleas

French: pouilleux (fr) m, pouilleuse (fr) f Italian: pulcioso Portuguese: pulguento (pt) m, pulguenta f Romanian: puricos (ro) Spanish: pulgoso

mangy, filthy

Italian: pulcioso, sudicio (it)