any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
Slang. a person, especially one having some peculiarity: He's a queer bird.
Informal. an aircraft, spacecraft, or guided missile.
Cookery. a thin piece of meat, poultry, or fish rolled around a stuffing and braised: veal birds.
Southern U.S.(in hunting) a bobwhite.
Chiefly BritishSlang. a girl or young woman.
Archaic. the young of any fowl.
the bird,Slang.
disapproval, as of a performance, by hissing, booing, etc.: He got the bird when he came out on stage.
scoffing or ridicule: He was trying to be serious, but we all gave him the bird.
an obscene gesture of contempt made by raising the middle finger.
verb (used without object)
to catch or shoot birds.
to bird-watch.
Idioms
a little bird, Informal. a secret source of information: A little bird told me that today is your birthday.
bird in the hand, a thing possessed in fact as opposed to a thing about which one speculates: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.Also bird in hand.
birds of a feather, people with interests, opinions, or backgrounds in common: Birds of a feather flock together.
eat like a bird, to eat sparingly: She couldn't understand why she failed to lose weight when she was, as she said, eating like a bird.
for the birds, Slang. useless or worthless; not to be taken seriously: Their opinions on art are for the birds. That pep rally is for the birds.
kill two birds with one stone, to achieve two aims with a single effort: She killed two birds with one stone by shopping and visiting the museum on the same trip.
the birds and the bees, basic information about sex and reproduction: It was time to talk to the boy about the birds and the bees.
Origin of bird
before 900;Middle Englishbyrd, bryd,Old Englishbrid(d) young bird, chick
Related formsbird·less, adjective
Bird
[burd]
noun
Larry,born 1956,U.S. basketball player.
Parker
[pahr-ker]
noun
Charles Christopher, Jr.Bird, 1920–55,U.S. jazz saxophonist and composer.
Dorothy (Rothschild),1893–1967,U.S. author.
Sir Gilbert,1862–1932,Canadian novelist and politician in England.
Horatio William,1863–1919,U.S. composer, organist, and teacher.
any warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrate of the class Aves, characterized by a body covering of feathers and forelimbs modified as wings. Birds vary in size between the ostrich and the humming birdRelated adjectives: avian, ornithic
informala person (usually preceded by a qualifying adjective, as in the phrases rare bird, odd bird, clever bird)
slang, mainlyBritisha girl or young woman, esp one's girlfriend
slangprison or a term in prison (esp in the phrase do bird; shortened from birdlime, rhyming slang for time)
a bird in the handsomething definite or certain
the bird has flowninformalthe person in question has fled or escaped
the birds and the beeseuphemistic, orjocularsex and sexual reproduction
birds of a featherpeople with the same characteristics, ideas, interests, etc
get the birdinformal
to be fired or dismissed
(esp of a public performer) to be hissed at, booed, or derided
give someone the birdinformalto tell someone rudely to depart; scoff at; hiss
kill two birds with one stoneto accomplish two things with one action
like a birdwithout resistance or difficulty
a little birda (supposedly) unknown informanta little bird told me it was your birthday
for the birdsorstrictly for the birdsinformaldeserving of disdain or contempt; not important
Sir Alan (William). born 1944, British film director and screenwriter; his films include Bugsy Malone (1976), Midnight Express (1978), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Commitments (1991), and Angela's Ashes (2000); chairman of the British Film Institute (1998–99) and of the Film Council (1999–2004)
Charlie. nickname Bird or Yardbird. 1920–55, US jazz alto saxophonist and composer; the leading exponent of early bop
Dorothy (Rothschild). 1893–1967, US writer, noted esp for the ironical humour of her short stories
Matthew. 1504–75, English prelate. As archbishop of Canterbury (1559–75), he supervised Elizabeth I's religious settlement
Old English bird, rare collateral form of bridd, originally "young bird, nestling" (the usual Old English for "bird" being fugol), of uncertain origin with no cognates in any other Germanic language. The suggestion that it is related by umlaut to brood and breed is rejected by OED as "quite inadmissible." Metathesis of -r- and -i- was complete 15c.
Middle English, in which bird referred to various young animals and even human beings, may have preserved the original meaning of this word. Despite its early attestation, bridd is not necessarily the oldest form of bird. It is usually assumed that -ir- from -ri- arose by metathesis, but here, too, the Middle English form may go back to an ancient period. [Liberman]
Figurative sense of "secret source of information" is from 1540s. Bird dog (n.) attested from 1832, a gun dog used in hunting game birds; hence the verb (1941) meaning "to follow closely." Bird-watching attested from 1897. Bird's-eye view is from 1762. For the birds recorded from 1944, supposedly in allusion to birds eating from droppings of horses and cattle.
A byrde yn honde ys better than three yn the wode. [c.1530]
n.2
"maiden, young girl," c.1300, confused with burd (q.v.), but felt by later writers as a figurative use of bird (n.1). Modern slang meaning "young woman" is from 1915, and probably arose independently of the older word.
n.3
"middle finger held up in a rude gesture," slang derived from 1860s expression give the big bird "to hiss someone like a goose," kept alive in vaudeville slang with sense of "to greet someone with boos, hisses, and catcalls" (1922), transferred 1960s to the "up yours" hand gesture (the rigid finger representing the hypothetical object to be inserted) on notion of defiance and contempt. Gesture itself seems to be much older (the human anatomy section of a 12c. Latin bestiary in Cambridge describes the middle finger as that "by means of which the pursuit of dishonour is indicated").
Any of numerous warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate animals of the class Aves. Birds have wings for forelimbs, a body covered with feathers, a hard bill covering the jaw, and a four-chambered heart.
A Closer Look: It is generally believed that birds are descended from dinosaurs and probably evolved from them during the Jurassic Period. While most paleontologists believe that birds evolved from a small dinosaur called the theropod, which in turn evolved from the thecodont, a reptile from the Triassic Period, other paleontologists believe that birds and dinosaurs both evolved from the thecodont. There are some who even consider the bird to be an actual dinosaur. According to this view, the bird is an avian dinosaur, and the older dinosaur a nonavian dinosaur. Although there are variations of thought on the exact evolution of birds, the similarities between birds and dinosaurs are striking and undeniable. Small meat-eating dinosaurs and primitive birds share about twenty characteristics that neither group shares with any other kind of animal; these include tubular bones, the position of the pelvis, the shape of the shoulder blades, a wishbone-shaped collarbone, and the structure of the eggs. Dinosaurs had scales, and birds have modified scales-their feathers-and scaly feet. Some dinosaurs also may have had feathers; a recently discovered fossil of a small dinosaur indicates that it had a featherlike covering. In fact, some primitive fossil birds and small meat-eating dinosaurs are so similar that it is difficult to tell them apart based on their skeletons alone.
