MaggotyWord for the Wise October 06, 2006 Broadcast Topic: Maggoty A friend asked why something whimsical is also described as "maggoty.
" We can chalk up the explanation either to the capriciousness of our English language or to the fact that the meaning of a word can be transformed over time.
Whichever theory you prefer, we wouldn't advise using the two terms interchangeably, although we do admit that maggot is—sometimes—synonymous with whim.
(来源：2HZZ常识网 http://www.
2hzz.
com) Since the early 1300s, the word maggot has been used to name the soft-bodied legless grub that is the larva of a dipterous insect.
Sometime in the early 1600s, the conceit of that baby wormlike feeding form that metamorphoses into another form took flight and developed a figurative sense naming a fantastic or eccentric idea, or whim.
Ironically (or not), that fanciful meaning stuck around, and the changeable maggot also came to name a fixed idea or obsession.
On the other hand, the meaning of whim hasn't wandered all that far from its initial sense.
Whim entered English in the late 1600s, a shortening of whim-wham, a whimsical object or device especially of ornament or dress.
A whim is a fancy or a capricious or eccentric and often sudden idea or turn of the mind.