hoatzin

[ hoh-at-sin, waht-sin ]

noun
  1. a blue-faced, crested bird, Opisthocomus hoazin, of the Amazon and Orinoco forests, having as a nestling a large, temporary claw on the second and third digits of the forelimb, for climbing among the tree branches.

Origin of hoatzin

1
1655–65; ≪ Nahuatl huāctzīn,huāhtzīn name for several hen-sized birds of the Valley of Mexico, apparently applied indiscriminately by early naturalists to similar New World birds

Words Nearby hoatzin

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use hoatzin in a sentence

  • The other tribe is represented by that strange bird the hoatzin of the Amazon.

    Birds in Flight | W. P. Pycraft
  • But it is not nearly so long as in the hoatzin, and there is no terminal claw.

    Birds in Flight | W. P. Pycraft
  • The flight of the hoatzin resembles that of an over-fed hen.

    Jungle Peace | William Beebe
  • Such is the normal right destiny of a hoatzin chick, and the whee-og!

    Jungle Peace | William Beebe
  • For the young hoatzin is hatched in a nursery—a crude nest of sticks—placed on the boughs of a tree overhanging the water.

    Birds in Flight | W. P. Pycraft

British Dictionary definitions for hoatzin

hoatzin

hoactzin

/ (həʊˈætsɪn) /


noun
  1. a unique South American gallinaceous bird, Opisthocomus hoazin, with a brownish plumage, a very small crested head, and clawed wing digits in the young: family Opisthocomidae

Origin of hoatzin

1
C17: from American Spanish, from Nahuatl uatzin pheasant

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