wild turkey

American  

noun

1. the ancestral species of the domesticated turkey.

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Etymology

Origin of wild turkey

An Americanism dating back to 1605–15

Example Sentences

New Hampshire: Wild turkey, heath hen, pigeon, whooping crane, Eskimo curlew, upland plover, Labrador duck; woodland caribou, moose.

From Our Vanishing Wild Life Its Extermination and Preservation by Hornaday, William Temple

Wild turkey gobblers to me, who had hunted them enough to learn how sagacious and cunning and difficult to stalk they were, always seemed as provocative of excitement as larger game.

From Tales of lonely trails by Grey, Zane

Wild turkey, quail, wild duck, wild geese, the latter already beginning their southward migration, were as abundant, one might say, as leaves on the trees or on the ground.

From The Story of Old Fort Loudon by Murfree, Mary Noailles

Texas: Wild turkey, passenger pigeon, ivory-billed woodpecker, flamingo, roseate spoonbill, American egret, whooping crane, wood-duck; bison, elk, mountain sheep, antelope, "a small, dark deer that lived 40 years ago."

From Our Vanishing Wild Life Its Extermination and Preservation by Hornaday, William Temple

Wild turkey gobblin' would scare me most out of my senses, an', as for the birds, there are jest about a fourth what there used to be, an' the crops eaten to pay for it.

From The Song of the Cardinal by Stratton-Porter, Gene