| 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.
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| 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.
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| 11. | to catch or shoot birds. |
| 12. | to bird-watch. |
| 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. |

| 1. | Charles Christopher, Jr. (“Bird” ), 1920–55, U.S. jazz saxophonist and composer. |
| 2. | Dorothy (Rothschild), 1893–1967, U.S. author. |
| 3. | Sir Gilbert, 1862–1932, Canadian novelist and politician in England. |
| 4. | Horatio William, 1863–1919, U.S. composer, organist, and teacher. |
| 5. | John, 1729–75, American Revolutionary patriot. |
| 6. | Matthew, 1504–75, English theologian. |
| 7. | Quanah. Quanah (def. 1). |
| 8. | Theodore, 1810–60, U.S. preacher, theologian, and reformer. |
| 9. | a male given name. |
bird (bûrd) n.
[Middle English, from Old English brid, young bird.] bird'ing n. |
| clay pigeon n. A clay disk thrown as a flying target for skeet and trapshooting. Also called bird. |
bird
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"A byrde yn honde ys better than three yn the wode." [c.1530]
Bird
Birds are divided in the Mosaic law into two classes, (1) the clean (Lev. 1:14-17; 5:7-10; 14:4-7), which were offered in sacrifice; and (2) the unclean (Lev. 11:13-20). When offered in sacrifice, they were not divided as other victims were (Gen. 15:10). They are mentioned also as an article of food (Deut. 14:11). The art of snaring wild birds is referred to (Ps. 124:7; Prov. 1:17; 7:23; Jer. 5:27). Singing birds are mentioned in Ps. 104:12; Eccl. 12:4. Their timidity is alluded to (Hos. 11:11). The reference in Ps. 84:3 to the swallow and the sparrow may be only a comparison equivalent to, "What her house is to the sparrow, and her nest to the swallow, that thine altars are to my soul."
bird
In addition to the idioms beginning with bird, also see catbird seat; early bird catches the worm; eat like a bird; for the birds; free as a bird; kill two birds with one stone; little bird told me; naked as a jaybird; rare bird.