button quail

American  

[buht-n kweyl] / ˈbʌt n ˌkweɪl /

Or buttonquail

noun

1. any of several small, drab, terrestrial birds of the family Turnicidae, with all but one species in the genus Turnix and well distributed in the grasslands of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe: named for their resemblance to Old World true quails, the button quails belong to a different order (Charadriiformes) and are distinct in having neither a hind toe nor a crop.

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button quail British  

noun

1. Also called: hemipode.  any small quail-like terrestrial bird of the genus Turnix , such as T. sylvatica (striped button quail), occurring in tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World: family Turnicidae , order Gruiformes (cranes, rails, etc)

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Etymology

Origin of button quail

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

After this, as I was loading, a partridge got up from some stubbly grass in a clearing, with an astonishingly familiar whirr, and went clear away, and I'd barely loaded when a Button quail whipped over some bushes, and it dropped, but in impenetrable thorns!

From Project Gutenberg

On entering Mrs Mayhew's drawing-room, he had found, not his "moonlight maiden," as it pleased him to call her, but the Button Quail herself, who greeted him with a rather embarrassing effusion of thanks.

From Project Gutenberg

Her hopeless little 'Button Quail' of a mother won't understand it in the least, but Colonel Mayhew will.

From Project Gutenberg

For she had sons growing up at home—this insignificant woman, whose plump proportions and bird-like eyes had earned her the nickname of "the Button Quail"; and even a good appointment did not annul the vagaries of the rupee, which was behaving peculiarly ill just then.

From Project Gutenberg

I suppose I must gently point out to him that now the station is waking up it would be well to consider the proprieties a little more than we have done so far; or the 'Button Quail' will be forbidding Elsie the house.

From Project Gutenberg