sandpiper

American  

[sand-pahy-per] / ˈsændˌpaɪ pɛr /

noun

1. any of numerous shore-inhabiting birds of the family Scolopacidae, related to the plovers, typically having a slender bill and a piping call.

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sandpiper British  

/ ˈsændˌpaɪpə /

noun

1. any of numerous N hemisphere shore birds of the genera Tringa, Calidris, etc, typically having a long slender bill and legs and cryptic plumage: family Scolopacidae, order Charadriiformes

2. any other bird of the family Scolopacidae, which includes snipes and woodcocks

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Etymology

Origin of sandpiper

First recorded in 1665–75; sand + piper

Example Sentences

A few sandpipers scuttled around the edges — shorebirds from afar that had arrived with the floods and remained behind afterward for reasons of their own.

From Washington Post

The first aviary focuses on shorebirds — plovers, sandpipers, sanderlings — that come to the Delaware Bay around Cape May, N.J., to munch on horseshoe crab eggs.

From Washington Post

The former Times critic Parul Sehgal noted that Watson covers vast terrain while “skittering back and forth like a sandpiper at the shores of language’s Great Debates.”

From New York Times

Billions of other young birds, including warblers and flycatchers, terns and sandpipers, set out on similarly spectacular and dangerous migrations every spring, skillfully navigating the night skies without any help from more experienced birds.

From Scientific American

Juvenile salmon shelter and feed in eelgrass beds there, while migratory sandpipers frequent nearby mud flats.

From Seattle Times