plantain-eater

American

[plan-tin-ee-ter, -tn-] / ˈplæn tɪnˌi tər, -tn- /

noun

any of various touracos, erroneously believed to feed chiefly on plantains and bananas.

plantain-eater British

noun

another name for touraco

"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

Etymology

Origin of plantain-eater

First recorded in 1795–1805

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.

There was not only the rustle and creak of parting leaves and bending twigs, and the crack of small branches that snapped under his hand; but his intrusion scared the natural denizens of the forest, and they clattered away with loud cries of alarm—grey parrots in hundreds, green pigeons, occasionally a hawk or the great blue plantain-eater.

From Project Gutenberg

Beautifully coloured are the green touraco and the purple plantain-eater, a rascally bird! who eats some of our finest plantains, and has bitten holes in many a one I thought to get entirely to myself.

From Project Gutenberg

An interesting account has lately been given by Professor Church of a new animal pigment, containing copper, found in the feathers of the violet plantain-eater and two species of Turacus, natives respectively of the Gold Coast, the Cape, and Natal.

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023