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Birds

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Birds, The

 
Use Birds in a Sentence
–noun
a comedy (414 b.c.) by Aristophanes.
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bird

  [burd]
–noun
1. any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
2. a fowl or game bird.
3. Sports.
a. clay pigeon.
b. a shuttlecock.
4. Slang. a person, esp. one having some peculiarity: He's a queer bird.
5. Informal. an aircraft, spacecraft, or guided missile.
6. Cookery. a thin piece of meat, poultry, or fish rolled around a stuffing and braised: veal birds.
7. Southern U.S. (in hunting) a bobwhite.
8. Chiefly British Slang. a girl or young woman.
9. Archaic. the young of any fowl.
10. the bird, Slang.
a. disapproval, as of a performance, by hissing, booing, etc.: He got the bird when he came out on stage.
b. scoffing or ridicule: He was trying to be serious, but we all gave him the bird.
c. an obscene gesture of contempt made by raising the middle finger.
–verb (used without object)
11. to catch or shoot birds.
12. to bird-watch.
—Idioms
13. a little bird, Informal. a secret source of information: A little bird told me that today is your birthday.
14. bird in the hand, a thing possessed in fact as opposed to a thing about which one speculates: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Also, bird in hand.
15. birds of a feather, people with interests, opinions, or backgrounds in common: Birds of a feather flock together.
16. eat like a bird, to eat sparingly: She couldn't understand why she failed to lose weight when she was, as she said, eating like a bird.
17. for the birds, Slang. useless or worthless; not to be taken seriously: Their opinions on art are for the birds. That pep rally is for the birds.
18. kill two birds with one stone, to achieve two aims with a single effort: She killed two birds with one stone by shopping and visiting the museum on the same trip.
19. the birds and the bees, basic information about sex and reproduction: It was time to talk to the boy about the birds and the bees.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME byrd, bryd, OE brid(d) young bird, chick

Related forms:
birdless, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Birds
bird   (bûrd)   
n.  

    1. Any of various warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrates of the class Aves, having forelimbs modified to form wings.

    2. Such an animal hunted as game.

    3. Such an animal, especially a chicken or turkey, used as food: put the bird in the oven.

    4. A loud sound expressing disapproval; a raspberry.

    5. Discharge from employment: lost a big sale and nearly got the bird.

  2. See clay pigeon.

  3. Sports See shuttlecock.

  4. Slang A rocket, guided missile, satellite, or airplane.

  5. Slang A person, especially one who is odd or remarkable: a sly old bird.

  6. Chiefly British Slang A young woman.

  7. Slang

    1. A loud sound expressing disapproval; a raspberry.

    2. Discharge from employment: lost a big sale and nearly got the bird.

  8. An obscene gesture of anger, defiance, or derision made by pointing or jabbing the middle finger upward.

intr.v.   bird·ed, bird·ing, birds

  1. To observe and identify birds in their natural surroundings.

  2. To trap, shoot, or catch birds.


[Middle English, from Old English brid, young bird.]
bird'ing n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Cultural Dictionary

birds

A class of vertebrates distinguished by their feathers and their two legs and two wings. Birds are warm-blooded animals, and their young hatch from eggs.

Note: Some scientists argue that modern birds are descended from the dinosaurs.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Slang Dictionary
bird

  1. n.
    a woman; a girl. : I like the bird you were with last night.
  2. n.
    a derisive noise made with the lips; a raspberry. : The third time he fumbled, he was greeted by two thousand mouths making the bird.
  3. n.
    an odd person. : Some old bird came up to me and tried to sell me a cookbook.
  4. n.
    a rude gesture made with the middle finger. (Usually with the. See comments at finger wave.) : A lot of little kids give people the bird all the time because they see it on television.
  5. n.
    an airplane. : I like this bird. She's a dream to fly.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

bird  (1)
O.E. bridd, originally "young bird" (the usual O.E. for "bird" being fugol), of uncertain origin with no cognates in any other Gmc. language. The suggestion that it is somehow connected by umlaut to brood and breed is dismissed by OED as "quite inadmissible." Metathesis of -r- and -i- occurred 15c. Fig. sense of "secret source of information" is from 1546. Slang meaning "middle finger held up in a rude gesture" is from 1860s expression give the big bird "to hiss someone like a goose," kept alive in vaudeville slang with sense of "to greet someone with boos, hisses, and catcalls" (1922), transferred 1960s to the "up yours" hand gesture (the rigid finger representing the hypothetical object to be inserted) on notion of defiance and contempt. Gesture itself seems to be much older (the human anatomy section of a 12c. Latin bestiary in Cambridge describes the middle finger as that "by means of which the pursuit of dishonour is indicated"). Bird-brain (1943) is suggestive of flightiness. Bird-cage is from 1490. Bird's-eye view is from 1762. For the birds recorded from 1944, supposedly in allusion to birds eating from droppings of horses and cattle.
"A byrde yn honde ys better than three yn the wode." [c.1530]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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