gadfly

A gadfly is a person who’s always hanging around and annoying people with criticism, demands, and questions. Basically, the kind of person you want to shoo away like a biting insect. Speaking of which …

The literal meaning of gadfly refers to any of several types of flies (such as stable flies or warble flies) that are known for pestering livestock by biting them and sucking their blood.

Example: Don’t mind him—he’s just a gadfly who comes to every council meeting to request that the town pay to put a trampoline park in his backyard.

The first records of gadfly come from the late 1500s, in reference to the biting fly. The gad part comes from a name for a stick used to poke or prod cattle (also known as a goad or cattle prod). Around the 1600s, gadfly started to be used in figurative ways, including to mean “a social butterfly.”

Today, the most common use of gadfly is in reference to an annoying person who pesters people with frivolous requests or tries to rope them into their schemes. It’s a good metaphor: literal gadflies are notorious for biting and annoying cattle and other barnyard animals. They’re mostly harmless, but they’re relentless—they keep biting and biting because there’s not much the animals can do to shoo them away.

The same goes for figurative gadflies. They’re the kind of people who relentlessly pepper you with questions, demands, even insults. Local government meetings are known for drawing gadflies—the people who are always there issuing criticisms and making unreasonable requests, often with the intention of provoking government officials. (Sometimes, though, the word may be self-applied or applied to people trying to hold officials accountable.) A lot of TV sitcoms have a gadfly character—the one who’s always hanging around and annoying people.

What are some synonyms for gadfly?

• pest
• pesterer
• nuisance

What are some words that share a root or word element with gadfly? 

• gad
• fly
• horse fly
• housefly

What are some words that often get used in discussing gadfly?

• annoy
• pester
• harass
• relentless
• insect
• bite
• livestock
• cattle

Gadfly is most commonly used in its figurative sense, and it’s almost always used negatively.

I worked in Columbus for 13yrs and remember Rusty Houser as a political gadfly who always complained at city council meetings. #wsbtv

— Richard Elliot (@RElliotWSB) July 24, 2015

Two political gadflies, Stephen Bannon and Guo Wengui, have a common, if overly grand, objective: bringing about the demise of the Chinese Communist Party. https://t.co/PEPkUupu8j

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 4, 2018

My knee looks like the map of America – stupid gadfly…

— Swans cookie @AC:NH fun (@HaruspexArtemy) July 3, 2013

Which of the following terms best describes someone who’s considered a gadfly?

A. helpful
B. annoying
C. considerate
D. low maintenance