dabchick
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of dabchick
1565–75; earlier dapchick ( see dap, chick); compare doppened moorhen (literally, dipping duck)
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.
As he spoke he bobbed and dipped like a dabchick or little grebe.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Spī′der-catch′er, the wall-creeper; Spī′der-crab, a spider-like crab, or sea-spider with long thin legs; Spī′der-dīv′er, the little grebe, or dabchick; Spī′derdom, spiders collectively.—adj.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
In the hot summer weather he would bathe twenty times a day, and was as much at home in the water as any dabchick.
From Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood by George MacDonald
Mr. Gould seems to think that the dabchick likes insects and fish spawn better than fish, or at least more prudently dines upon them.
From Love's Meinie Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds by John Ruskin
The dabchick, a slender bird, haunts the pond here too, diving even more quickly than the moorhen.
From Wild Life in a Southern County by Richard Jefferies
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.
