or maggot-headed, maggot-pated, adj. (common).—Fanciful; eccentric; full of whimsies.
1687. RICHARD KIRBY and JOHN BISHOP, The Marrow of Astrology, 60. A fantastick Man, wholly bent to fool his Estate and Time away, in prating and trying of nice conclusions, and MAGGOT PATED whimsies, to no purpose.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. MAGGOT.
1706. FARQUHAR, The Recruiting Officer, ii. 2. I should have some rogue of a builder … transform my noble oaks and elms into cornices, portals, sashes … to adorn some MAGOTTY, new-fashioned bauble upon the Thames.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.), s.v.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
1815–26. WILLIAM KIRBY and WILLIAM SPENCE, Introduction to Entomology, 85. The common saying that a whimsical person is MAGGOTY, or has got maggots in his head, perhaps arose from the freaks the sheep have been observed to exhibit when infested by bots.
1882. REV. J. PICKFORD, in Notes and Queries, 6. S. v. 218. Be it observed that MAGGOTY is a Cheshire provincialism for ‘crotchety,’ like the expression used in other parts, ‘a bee in the bottom.’
