noun
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any passerine bird of the suborder Oscines, having highly developed vocal organs and, in most, a musical call
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any bird having a musical call
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of songbird
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:
Mooney has twice introduced House bills trying to win official status for the bird, including adding the scrub jay as the state songbird in this past legislative session to broaden support.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
For example, researchers can randomly assign plots of forest to receive nest boxes in order to test whether they help songbird populations grow.
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026
A philosopher, historian, songbird of grief and prophet, Didion foretold the city’s future with startling accuracy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
Fortunately, these bats pose no threat to songbird populations.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 2, 2025
Kamala kept a small rare songbird in a small golden cage.
From "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
Locals on the island have long made money from hunting wild songbirds and selling them, mainly to domestic customers.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
Rosemary and Peter Grant, a married pair of evolutionary biologists who studied songbirds on Daphne Major, a small volcanic island in the Galápagos archipelago, are the subjects of Jonathan Weiner’s “The Beak of the Finch.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
University of Michigan scientists have used artificial intelligence to uncover a striking pattern in the evolution of Passeriformes, the vast bird group that includes most songbirds.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 30, 2026
A team analysed the songs of more than 100,000 songbirds and revealed that the world's birdsongs are composed of eight fundamental types of sound that the researchers call "motifs".
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
The farm machinery had fallen silent, and I could hear the sounds of songbirds in the trees, and also the low clucking of hens.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
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.
