corn crake


noun
  1. a short-billed Eurasian rail, Crex crex, frequenting grainfields.

Origin of corn crake

1
First recorded in 1545–55

Words Nearby corn crake

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How to use corn crake in a sentence

  • Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling; and a corn-crake churred in the young wheat.

    The Dark Flower | John Galsworthy
  • This and the corn crake are the only two marsh birds that should properly be reckoned among house-birds.

  • She's quiet for five minutes then bursts out into song again like a chirruping cricket or a croaking corn-crake.

    A Popular Schoolgirl | Angela Brazil
  • From a distant field came the dim wheezing of a corn-crake; nearer at hand a nightingale was beginning his epithalamic welcome.

    The Gay Adventure | Richard Bird
  • And all of a sudden the solitary corn-crake cries from the wheat.

    Birds of the wave and woodland | Phil (Philip Stewart) Robinson

British Dictionary definitions for corncrake

corncrake

/ (ˈkɔːnˌkreɪk) /


noun
  1. a common Eurasian rail, Crex crex, of fields and meadows, with a buff speckled plumage and reddish wings

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012