tropic bird

American  

Or tropicbird

noun

1. any of several web-footed seabirds of the family Phaethontidae, chiefly of tropical seas, having white plumage with black markings and a pair of greatly elongated central tail feathers.

---

Etymology

Origin of tropic bird

First recorded in 1675–85

Example Sentences

It could not be the tail-feathers of the tropic bird so prized by the chiefs of Polynesia; nor yet the scarlet pouch of the sea-hawk.

From The Ocean Waifs A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Reid, Mayne

Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes near enough to let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail.

From Wanderings in South America by Waterton, Charles

You seem, in your scarlet boating-dress, Annie, like some bright tropic bird, alit for a moment beside that other bird of the tropics, flame.

From Oldport Days by Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

And she, to whom warmth and colour were a very part of her nature, was an exotic, a lost tropic bird, in these icy mountains.

From The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson by Sanchez, Nellie Van de Grift

The name “boatswain-bird” is applied to some other kinds of birds, besides the tropic bird.

From The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 by Olson, Julius E.