[burd] 
| 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. |
[burd] | Larry, born 1956, U.S. basketball player. |
[pahr-ker] | 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. |
| Bird (bûrd) American basketball player and coach. As a forward for the Boston Celtics (1979-1992), he helped lead the team to three world championships between 1981 and 1986 and was named the National Basketball Association's most valuable player three times. |
| clay pigeon n. A clay disk thrown as a flying target for skeet and trapshooting. Also called bird. |
| shut·tle·cock (shŭt'l-kŏk') n. A small rounded piece of cork or rubber with a conical crown of feathers or plastic, used in badminton. Also called bird, birdie. v. tr. shut·tle·cocked, shut·tle·cock·ing, shut·tle·cocks To throw or send back and forth like a shuttlecock. |
| bird (bûrd) Pronunciation Key
Any of numerous warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate animals of the class Aves. Birds have wings for forelimbs, a body covered with feathers, a hard bill covering the jaw, and a four-chambered heart. Our Living Language : It is generally believed that birds are descended from dinosaurs and probably evolved from them during the Jurassic Period. While most paleontologists believe that birds evolved from a small dinosaur called the theropod, which in turn evolved from the thecodont, a reptile from the Triassic Period, other paleontologists believe that birds and dinosaurs both evolved from the thecodont. There are some who even consider the bird to be an actual dinosaur. According to this view, the bird is an avian dinosaur, and the older dinosaur a nonavian dinosaur. Although there are variations of thought on the exact evolution of birds, the similarities between birds and dinosaurs are striking and undeniable. Small meat-eating dinosaurs and primitive birds share about twenty characteristics that neither group shares with any other kind of animal; these include tubular bones, the position of the pelvis, the shape of the shoulder blades, a wishbone-shaped collarbone, and the structure of the eggs. Dinosaurs had scales, and birds have modified scales—their feathers—and scaly feet. Some dinosaurs also may have had feathers; a recently discovered fossil of a small dinosaur indicates that it had a featherlike covering. In fact, some primitive fossil birds and small meat-eating dinosaurs are so similar that it is difficult to tell them apart based on their skeletons alone. |
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.