weevily

weevily

English

Alternative forms

• weevilly

Etymology

weevil +‎ -y

Adjective

weevily (comparative more weevily, superlative most weevily)

1. Infested with or containing weevils.
   • 1813, The Literary Panorama, Volume 13, “State of Trade,” Lloyd’s Coffee House, June 21, p. 1037,

     A considerable portion of the rice now on hand is of inferior quality, and weevily; it gives distaste in families, and few domestics make sufficiently good use of their eyes to pick it carefully.

   • 1893, Albert Paine, “Weevily Wheat” in Rhymes by Two Friends, Fort Scott, Kansas, p. 112,

     O, I’ll have none of your weevily wheat,

     And I’ll have none of your barley,

     O, I’ll have none of your weevily wheat

     To bake a cake for Charlie.

   • 1950, C. S. Forester, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, London: Michael Joseph, “The Penalty of Failure,”

     […] Hornblower remembered the stuffy dark midshipman’s berth, the smells and the creakings, the bitter cold nights, turning out in response to the call for all hands, the weevilly bread and the wooden beef, and he yearned for them all, with the sick feeling of hopeless longing.

   • 2011, Guy Vanderhaeghe, A Good Man, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Chapter 9, p. 139,

     Hind had made his fortune provisioning railway construction gangs and lakeboat crews with the very cheapest of weevily foodstuffs.