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• heron
  heron

  noun

  any of numerous long-legged, long-necked, usually long-billed birds of the family Ardeidae, including the true herons, egrets, night herons, and bitterns.
• Heron
  Heron

  noun

  Hero.

heron

¹ American  

[her-uhn] / ˈhɛr ən /

noun

• herons
  plural

1. any of numerous long-legged, long-necked, usually long-billed birds of the family Ardeidae, including the true herons, egrets, night herons, and bitterns.

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Heron ² American  

[heer-on] / ˈhɪər ɒn /

noun

1. Hero.

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Heron ¹ British  

/ ˈhɪərɒn /

noun

1. same as Hero

2. Patrick. 1920–99, British abstract painter and art critic

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heron ² British  

/ ˈhɛrən /

noun

1. any of various wading birds of the genera Butorides, Ardea, etc, having a long neck, slim body, and a plumage that is commonly grey or white: family Ardeidae, order Ciconiiformes

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• herons
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of heron

1275–1325; Middle English heiro ( u ) n, hero ( u ) n < Middle French hairon ( French héron ) < Germanic; compare Old High German heigir

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Explanation

Herons are birds that use their long legs to wade in marshes, ponds, and along the coastline. There are herons living on every single continent except Antarctica. There are dozens of heron species, ranging from medium-sized to the impressive goliath heron, which stands five feet tall. All of these shorebirds have long legs, long necks, and a wide wingspan. When a heron stands upright, it holds its neck in a distinctive S-shape, but when it flies, it tucks its head tightly up against its body. Heron is from the Old French hairon, which may derive from an imitative root mimicking the cry of a heron.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

heron Heron herons

A barrage of newly concocted action sequences in the second half makes the pacing so off-balance that the film feels like a heron trying to fly with one blinged-out wing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

Sightings of blue heron, egrets and river otters are common.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

One morning, I spend 20 minutes watching a 4-foot-tall great blue heron as it stalks fish along a pond’s edge.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

The first confirmed breeding of night heron in the UK was recorded in Somerset in 2017, but it is a scarce visitor to the UK.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Soon after McCandless returned to Carthage that spring, Westerberg introduced him to his longtime, on-again, off-again girl-friend, Gail Borah, a petite, sad-eyed woman, as slight as a heron, with delicate features and long blond hair.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

The oysters from Heron Island, a one-man operation in Fitch Cove about three miles downstream from Schooner Landing, tasted of grass-fed butter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

It is understood that the initial location of No 10 North will be Heron House in central Manchester, in the same building which houses offices for the intelligence service GCHQ.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

This time, she’s named Faye Heron, an Emmy-winning Hollywood multi-hyph who found cachet while working on one of those edgy premium dramedies that probably aired on HBO.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

Heron Power, a start-up focused on making solid-state transformers for data centers, has been raising money at a fast clip from big name investors.

From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026

Mr. Heron must have known that Father didn’t want to talk about Sam, but he said, “Perhaps there’d be a way of finding out where he is.”

From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

There's a lot of wildlife along there, you get herons, so it's a real shame.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

The site has also attracted blue herons, kingfishers, otters, deer, bears, California condors and a resident herd of elk notorious for tearing up new seedlings.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

The animal, named Kank australis, appears to have been a fish hunter whose feeding habits may have resembled those of modern herons.

From Science Daily ● May 29, 2026

In Vietnam, herons cast twigs in ponds like fly-fishermen to lure prey.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

The new information in each sentence is about how the herons react to cold weather.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

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