eyrie
Americannoun
noun
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the nest of an eagle or other bird of prey, built in a high inaccessible place
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the brood of a bird of prey, esp an eagle
-
any high isolated position or place
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eyrie
C16: from Medieval Latin airea, from Latin ārea open field, hence nest
Explanation
An eyrie is the nest of a bird of prey such as an eagle or hawk. Eyries are perched high, in tall trees or on cliffs. You've probably seen a bird's nest or two, but you may not have seen an eyrie. That's because eyries are very high up. Some eyries are in enormous trees, while others are on the sides of cliffs and mountains. This keeps the bird's nest very safe from other animals, but the birds who make eyries are dangerous: hunting birds such as eagles, falcons, and hawks. After killing and eating its prey, an eagle will return to its eyrie.
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.
See Examples For:
That changed in April 2023 when unknowing construction workers unceremoniously removed a disintegrating Pinky from its eyrie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
It is one of the few hyper-luxury apartment buildings that actually has the ethereal aura you would expect – a fitting costume for the eyrie of an untouchable elite.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 5, 2019
And my younger eyes loved the view from that eyrie.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2011
After learning of the location of a nest occupied by a family of elusive harpy eagles, film-maker Fergus Beeley set up his own eyrie high in the canopy above the Orinoco rainforest of Venezuela .
From The Guardian ● Jul. 8, 2010
Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
And while most of the California coast was sprouting pink motels, filling stations, and the cantilevered eyries of the rich, this stretch of Monterey County kept its rugged beauty.
From Time Magazine Archive
Embowered in pines, it rather resembled, seen from a distance, the eyrie of some huge eagle, than the abode of human beings, though eagles' eyries are not generally roofed in, with poles and clapboards.
From The Last of the Foresters Or, Humors on the Border; A story of the Old Virginia Frontier by Cooke, John Esten
Gigantic eagles, roused from their eyries, swept with heavy wing from crag to crag, the monarchs of these solitudes.
From Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century by Adams, W. H. Davenport
Belike, the eagles, from their eyries look down upon us Mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways.
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Melville, Herman
He felt that within him which rose up gigantic from the earth, and towered into eyries of space, from whence that morning star seemed like a dewdrop glittering low down upon the earth.
From The Worshipper of the Image by Le Gallienne, 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.
