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merganser

American  
[mer-gan-ser] / mərˈgæn sər /

noun

  • mergansers,
    plural
  • merganser
    plural
  1. any of several fish-eating diving ducks of the subfamily Merginae, having a narrow bill hooked at the tip and serrated at the edges.


merganser British  
/ mɜːˈɡænsə /

noun

  1. Also called: sawbill. any of several typically crested large marine diving ducks of the genus Mergus, having a long slender hooked bill with serrated edges See also goosander

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of merganser

1745–55; < New Latin, equivalent to Latin merg ( us ) diver, a kind of water bird + ānser goose


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:

They are part of this spring’s baby bird boom at the zoo, along with a recent Orinoco goose hatchling and five merganser ducklings born this week.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 27, 2023

Common merganser: The males have green heads like mallards while the females are redheads.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 19, 2016

There were also 150 long-tailed ducks, 300 scoters, 40 goldeneye, 15 buffleheads, nine mallards, one red-breasted merganser, two kinds of gulls, 20 Canada geese, and a raft of maybe 900 scaups.

From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2016

You’d have to search the archives of Surrealism to find a creature as imaginative looking as Audubon’s male hooded merganser in breeding plumage, with its miter-shaped head and yellow-dot eyes.

From New York Times ● Mar. 27, 2014

“That’s the merganser we found at Mill Pond,” I said, pointing to the duck with a Mohawk.

From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen

"We sequenced the mitochondrial genome of these species and reconstructed the family tree of mergansers and when their ancestors arrived in the region," he says.

From Science Daily ● May 20, 2024

He says that many of the mergansers there are related and lay their eggs about the same time.

From NewsForKids.net ● May 7, 2024

A pair of hooded mergansers swam by with some Canada geese.

From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2019

Then there was the time he tried to prepare mergansers.

From New York Times ● Feb. 5, 2019

It might have implied that white sharks were more important than mergansers or spotted salamanders, but to me they were.

From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen

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