chough

American  

[chuhf] / tʃʌf /

noun

1. any of several crowlike Old World birds, especially Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, of Europe.

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chough British  

/ tʃʌf /

noun

1. a large black passerine bird, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, of parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, with a long downward-curving red bill: family Corvidae (crows)

2. a smaller related bird, Pyrrhocorax graculus, with a shorter yellow bill

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Etymology

Origin of chough

1275–1325; Middle English choghe; akin to Old English cēo, Dutch kauw, Danish kaa

Example Sentences

She found it easier this time, and there was the chough, with her in her own world, perching on a branch that hung low over the pavement.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

Why, villain, it was the very Cornish chough to whom old Sir Hugh Robsart destined his pretty Amy; and hither the hot-brained fool has come to look after his fair runaway.

From Kenilworth by Scott, Walter, Sir

And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt, neat, quaint, dainty, trim, tricked up, brisk, smirk, and smug, even as a pretty little Cornish chough.

From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 by Motteux, Peter Anthony

I should know," added Jorian, oracularly, "for I was brought up along with a chough.

From The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Reade, Charles

I experimented on a Cornish chough — an old specimen, infested with maggots or larvae of the "clothes" moth.

From Practical Taxidermy A manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds. To which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums. With additional instructions in modelling and artistic taxidermy. by Browne, Montagu