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whinchat

[hwin-chat, win-]
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noun
  1. a small Old World thrush, Saxicola rubetra, having a buff-colored breast and white streaks in the tail.
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Origin of whinchat

First recorded in 1670–80; whin + chat
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for whinchat

Historical Examples

  • It is difficult to put oneself in the place of the Stonechat or of the Whinchat.

    Territory in Bird Life

    H. Eliot Howard

  • The furze-chat, mentioned by C. Brown, is the Saxicola rubetra, commonly also called the whinchat.

  • Mr Harvie Brown saw it at Aultbea in 1884, more abundantly than the whinchat.

    Gairloch In North-West Ross-Shire

    John H. Dixon, F.S.A. Scot

  • The Whinchat may be distinguished at a considerable distance by the white streak over the eye.

  • Some greenfinches, a whinchat or two, almost no pipits or larks, and very few sparrows.

British Dictionary definitions for whinchat

whinchat

noun
  1. an Old World songbird, Saxicola rubetra, having a mottled brown-and-white plumage with pale cream underparts: subfamily Turdinae (thrushes)
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Word Origin

C17: from whin 1 + chat 1
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