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birdie

[bur-dee]
noun
  1. a small bird.
  2. Golf. a score of one stroke under par on a hole.
  3. a shuttlecock.
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verb (used with object), bird·ied, bird·ie·ing.
  1. Golf. to make a birdie on (a hole).
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Origin of birdie

First recorded in 1785–95; bird + -ie
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for birdies

Historical Examples

  • O, cruel Tom, let birdies be, And blithely sing from bush and tree.

    Aunt Kitty's Stories

    Various

  • You forget I had eaten a few strawberries—just to encourage the birdies.

    Afterwards

    Kathlyn Rhodes

  • I guess heres where the birdies and butterflies had their Sabbath School.

  • "So my birdies must coo at midnight on the house-tops," he finally remarked.

    Mlle. Fouchette

    Charles Theodore Murray

  • Why, sis, do you want our chickens and birdies all carried off?

British Dictionary definitions for birdies

birdie

noun
  1. golf a score of one stroke under par for a hole
  2. informal a bird, esp a small bird
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verb
  1. (tr) golf to play (a hole) in one stroke under par
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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

Word Origin and History for birdies

birdie

n.

"little bird," 1792, from bird (n.1) + -ie. As golf slang for "a hole played one under par," by 1908, perhaps from bird (n.) in American English slang sense of "exceptionally clever or accomplished person or thing" (1839).

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper