Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a contemptible person, thus used as term of address.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 75: She is lineally descended from the Maggots of the South, an illustrious and ancient family, that were a branch of the Wag-tails of the East.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 177: You were as great a maggot as any in the world.
1748		Dyche & Pardon New General Eng. Dict. (5th edn).
1784		Rambler’s Mag. Mar. 105/1: When the height of fashion is adopted by Miss Maggot, the cheese-monger’s daughter [...] I would recommend it to those of the ton to assume an elegant simplicity of dress.
1867		W. Phillips Lost in London I i: Why, you little maggot.
1868		Rockhampton Bull. (Qld) 1 Oct. 3/2: It was but a simple and primitive socioety [...] when men caled each other Addlehead, Baldhead, Barebones, Bitch [...] Chisels, Dolt [...] Fogey [...] Gander [...] Maggot, Mangy, Muff, Muzzy.
1880		Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie IV tab.VII i: Now Maggot!
1922		E. Raymond Tell England (1965) 105: We’ll make these beastly little maggots sit up, unless they play properly.
1933		R. Tate Doughman 188: ‘I knew!’ was all the other answered. ‘You maggot!’ exclaimed Tunk.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Sobstuff Sister’ Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 20: She was riddled with lead and the film maggot said, / ‘If she leaves the films, what will the loss be?’.
1943		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 101: Why, you son of a maggot, / Do you think I’m a faggot?
1956		B. Behan Quare Fellow (1960) Act I: Ah, you maggot.
1961		(con. 1890–1910) ‘Flann O’Brien’ Hard Life (1962) 65: I’ve had my bellyful of the ignorant guff that is poured out by those maggots of Christian Brothers.
1971		J. McNeill Chocolate Frog (1973) 21: shirker: [I]t ain’t just any sort of maggot gets to be a dog...only those that lag other people.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 37: Those redneck maggots like to read their Bibles over you while they screwed you in the ass.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 294: Hello, maggot, [...] Let’s go for a ride, just you and me.
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 109: Let’s [...] book this maggot.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 33: maggot n. 1.A moron. 2. An abusive term for somebody one is anerv or annoyed wi.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] You fucking dog, Christakos [...] You filthy maggot. You’re fucked.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] My pain-fogged brain could faintly decipher frenzied screams of ‘cunt’, ‘bastard’, ‘asshole’, ‘maggot’.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 250: You fucking maggot.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 85: ‘Where are you, you little maggot?’.
2018		‘Aidan Truhen’ Price You Pay 97: I’m not talking dogs with you maggot now fuck off.
2018		G. Disher Kill Shot [ebook] Rec room chairs jerked away as he tried to sit. ‘Maggot’, ‘dog’ and ‘rat’ muttered in his ear.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 129: ‘Not only did that maggot burglarize me twice’ [etc].

(b) attrib. use of sense 1b.

2002

J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 19: I want all you cum-sucking maggot convicts down on your fucking knees, right now!

(c) constr. with the, a bad situation.

1840

‘Gloucestershire Bumpkin’ in Lover’s Harmony No. 18 138: Odd’s bobs and I thought it the maggot, [...] in turn such a baby as I / Might be soused in a trough like the sop in a pan.

(d) (Aus/N.Z./US black) a white person.

1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 113: You see all the white-maggots staring at them, much as to say, ‘Damn Maories, don’t know how to behave!’.
1982		G. Tate ‘Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 41: A masterpiece of mindless pleasure made for both mass-ass and Maggot consumption.
1989		J. Hibberd Memoirs of an Old Bastard 160: These saucy workingclass lasses [...] were soon addressing one particular umpire as a ‘white maggot’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 55: Maggot A white person.

(e) a short or undersized person.

1895

Mirror of Life 7 Sept. 11/4: This week we have to chronicle a fight between the Kingsland Whopper and the Dalston Maggot.

(f) (Aus.) a general term of abuse, esp. aimed at girls or women [plays on the image of the maggot that ‘eats your flesh’].

1969		J. Hibberd Dimboola (2000) 83: Delighted, Delilah! My little maggot.
1987		K. Lette Girls’ Night Out (1995) 187: Surfers are an amphibious, beach-dwelling species, who hunt in packs for females with ‘margarine legs’. You know, easily spread. Chicks are nicknamed bush pigs, swamp hogs, maggots, spitters or swallowers.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Maggot. A term of denigration variously applied to the following; the police, prison officers, protection prisoners, informers, and sundry others.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 27 June 11: They talked about women as bushpigs, swamp-hogs or maggots.
2005		Indep. 10 Sept. 22/1: Growing up as surfie girl in Australia where women were referred to as ‘bushpigs’, ‘swamp hogs’ or ‘maggots’.

(g) (US campus) a very lazy person, esp. one who stays in bed all day [they ‘burrow’ beneath the sheets].

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.