redstart

[ red-stahrt ]

/ ˈrɛdˌstɑrt /

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noun

any of several small, Old World thrushes, usually with reddish-brown tails, especially Phoenicurus phoenicurus(European redstart ).

any of several fly-catching, New World warblers, especially Setophaga ruticilla(American redstart ), having black and white plumage with reddish-orange patches.

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Origin of redstart

1560–70; red¹ + obsolete start tail (Middle English start, stert tail, handle, Old English steort tail; akin to Old High German sterz,Old Norse stertr)

Words nearby redstart

red spruce, Red Square, red squill, red squirrel, red star, redstart, red state, Redstone, red stuff, red supergiant, red tag

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use redstart in a sentence

I may add that I have had the same bad luck in all my former visits to the Islands, and never seen a Redstart.
Birds of Guernsey (1879)|Cecil Smith
The male Black Redstart has also a white patch on the wing caused by the pale, nearly white, margins of the feathers.
Birds of Guernsey (1879)|Cecil Smith
Dippers, wagtails and the white-capped redstart were the commonest birds along the river-banks.
Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921|Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury
A brightly-coloured bird, the redstart, appears suddenly in spring, like a flower that has bloomed before the bud was noticed.
The Hills and the Vale|Richard Jefferies

Of such are the redstart, the grey-headed flycatcher, the snipe and the majority of the game birds.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India|Douglas Dewar

British Dictionary definitions for redstart

redstart

/ (ˈrɛdˌstɑːt) /

noun

any European songbird of the genus Phoenicurus, esp P. phoenicurus, in which the male has a black throat, orange-brown tail and breast, and grey back: family Muscicapidae (thrushes, etc)

any North American warbler of the genus Setophaga, esp S. ruticilla

Word Origin for redstart

Old English rēad red 1 + steort tail; compare German Rotsterz

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