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
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 MacDonald, George
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 Jefferies, Richard
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 Ruskin, John
Hardly a wild-duck is now seen; one or two moorhens or a dabchick seem all.
From The Life of the Fields by Jefferies, Richard
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.
