brown thrasher

American  

noun

1. a common large songbird, Toxostoma rufum, of the eastern U.S., having reddish-brown plumage.

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Etymology

Origin of brown thrasher

An Americanism dating back to 1800–10

Example Sentences

Georgia picked the brown thrasher, a fiercely territorial bird with a repertoire of more than 1,000 song types.

From New York Times • Oct. 10, 2019

“In 2015, I had great blue heron, red-bellied woodpecker, American crow, American robin, brown thrasher, northern parula, pine warbler, yellow-throated warbler, chipping sparrow, white-throated sparrow.”

From Slate • Apr. 12, 2019

This was a brown thrasher, he told me, describing its attributes with a mix of precision and fondness — “rufous brown, speckled on the breast, yellow eye, curved beak, long tail.”

From New York Times • Jan. 9, 2019

Official state bird: brown thrasher Brown thrasher Courtesy of ibm4381/Flickr No, not this Nene.

From Slate • May 17, 2013

I stretched back in the sun and hummed the song of the brown thrasher and of Barometer, the nuthatch.

From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George