BUTCHERBIRD • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Butcherbird

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noun

butcherbird, butcher-bird, butcher bird n.

(Zool.) Any species of shrike of the genus Lanius, so called because they impale their prey on thorns.

(Zool.) Large carnivorous Australian bird with the shrikelike habit of impaling prey on thorns. Note: The Lanius excubitor is the common butcher bird of Europe. In England, the bearded tit is sometimes called the lesser butcher bird. The American species are Lanius borealis, or northern butcher bird, and Lanius Ludovicianus or loggerhead shrike. The name butcher bird is derived from its habit of suspending its prey impaled upon thorns, after killing it.

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Etymology of 'Butcherbird'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Butcherbird" Quotes from Famous Books

... veo. That is to say, the ballad or tale of the Bien-te-veo—a species of tyrant-bird quite common in the country, with a brown back and sulphur-yellow under parts, a crest on its head, and face barred with black and white. It is a little larger than our butcher-bird and, like it, is partly rapacious in its habits. The barred face and long kingfisher-like beak give it a peculiarly knowing or cunning look, and the effect is heightened by the long trisyllabic call constantly uttered by the bird, from ...

— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... hereupon, for the Musk-rat began to make himself obtrusive, believing in the Owl's opinion of his powers, and feeling that he could have produced the honey if he had thought of it; until an experimental Butcher-bird proposed to anatomise him as a help to decision. The hubbub increased, the opponents of the Musk-rat inquiring who his ancestors were; until a diversion was created by an able discourse of the Macaw on structures generally, which he classified so as to include ...

— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

Words linked to "Butcherbird" : genus Cracticus, white-rumped shrike, genus Lanius, Australian magpie, Lanius, European shrike, Lanius borealis, Lanius ludovicianus excubitorides