Bird
1 Americannoun
noun
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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.
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a fowl or game bird.
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Sports.
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a shuttlecock.
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Slang. a person, especially one having some peculiarity.
He's a queer bird.
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Informal. an aircraft, spacecraft, or guided missile.
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Cooking. a thin piece of meat, poultry, or fish rolled around a stuffing and braised.
veal birds.
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Southern U.S. (in hunting) a bobwhite.
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Chiefly British Slang. a girl or young woman.
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Archaic. the young of any fowl.
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Slang. the bird,
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disapproval, as of a performance, by hissing, booing, etc..
He got the bird when he came out on stage.
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scoffing or ridicule.
He was trying to be serious, but we all gave him the bird.
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an obscene gesture of contempt made by raising the middle finger.
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verb (used without object)
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to catch or shoot birds.
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to bird-watch.
idioms
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bird in the hand, a thing possessed in fact as opposed to a thing about which one speculates: Also bird in hand.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
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birds of a feather, people with interests, opinions, or backgrounds in common.
Birds of a feather flock together.
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for the birds, useless or worthless; not to be taken seriously.
Their opinions on art are for the birds. That pep rally is for the birds.
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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.
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a little bird, a secret source of information.
A little bird told me that today is your birthday.
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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.
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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.
noun
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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 bird
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informal a person (usually preceded by a qualifying adjective, as in the phrases rare bird, odd bird, clever bird )
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slang a girl or young woman, esp one's girlfriend
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slang prison or a term in prison (esp in the phrase do bird ; shortened from birdlime , rhyming slang for time )
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something definite or certain
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informal the person in question has fled or escaped
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euphemistic sex and sexual reproduction
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people with the same characteristics, ideas, interests, etc
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informal
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to be fired or dismissed
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(esp of a public performer) to be hissed at, booed, or derided
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informal to tell someone rudely to depart; scoff at; hiss
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to accomplish two things with one action
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without resistance or difficulty
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a (supposedly) unknown informant
a little bird told me it was your birthday
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informal deserving of disdain or contempt; not important
noun
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Closer 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.
Other Word Forms
- birdless adjective
- birdlike adjective
Etymology
Origin of bird
First recorded before 900; Middle English byrd, bryd, Old English brid(d) (Northumbrian dialect bird ) “young bird, chick”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In a study published earlier this year, Dudley and colleagues at Berkeley analyzed feathers from 17 bird species and found alcohol metabolites in 10 of them.
From Science Daily
With more than 12,000 species, they outnumber birds and mammals.
From Science Daily
They likely are wasting their time: the data these early birds obtain don’t provide an advantage — and may actually lead them astray.
From MarketWatch
Earlier work in cultured cells suggested that bird flu viruses are more tolerant of fever-level temperatures than human flu viruses.
From Science Daily
No one wants to intentionally ruin Thanksgiving by serving up an undercooked bird, or by serving up a cold front to one’s guests.
From MarketWatch
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
