tropic bird

American  

Or tropicbird

noun

1. any of several web-footed seabirds of the family Phaethontidae, chiefly of tropical seas, having white plumage with black markings and a pair of greatly elongated central tail feathers.

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Etymology

Origin of tropic bird

First recorded in 1675–85

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tropic bird

He quarrelled with the chief there and went off to the village called Palapala, where he met with Tavaetele, Great tropic bird, who had come from Aana on Upolu to seek taro plants.

From Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner

These caps, or rather bonnets, are composed of the tail feathers of the tropic bird, with the red feathers of the parroquets wrought upon them, or jointly with them.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 15 Forming A Complete History Of The Origin And Progress Of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce, By Sea And Land, From The Earliest Ages To The Present Time by Robert Kerr

Every now and then some scarlet tropic bird flashed across the shadow, but it was a very lifeless and a very silent scene. 

From The Hawaiian Archipelago by Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird

And she, to whom warmth and colour were a very part of her nature, was an exotic, a lost tropic bird, in these icy mountains.

From The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

When half-way across the point, I came suddenly upon a magnificent male tropic bird, sitting in his nest behind a tussock of tall, reedy grass.

From The Island Home by Dalziel

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