eat like a bird

Slang Dictionary

bird definition


  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.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

eat like a bird

Eat very little, as in Jan is very thinshe eats like a bird. This simile alludes to the mistaken impression that birds don't eat much (they actually do, relative to their size), and dates from the first half of the 1900s. An antonym is eat like a horse, dating from the early 1700s, and alluding to the tendency of horses to eat whatever food is available. For example, I never have enough food for Ellenshe eats like a horse!

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Cite This Source
Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.
  • Please Login or Sign Up to use the Recent Searches feature