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Wuthering Heights vocabulary
9 birds and/or bird terms
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blackbird
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synonyms: Turdus merula, ouzel, wosel, woosell ???
tags: [avian]
► definition
Definition:although this can refer to any one of a dozen species of thrush it most frequently refers to the common variety: Turdus merula.It shares similar feeding habits with the related American robin - short bursts of hopping followed by a pause to feed on ground insects.In North America blackbird is a general term for any black species of bird, such as the red-winged blackbird.
photo: by Ron Knight under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.]sound file: by Taka under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version
► uses
Uses:
A blackbird ran across the rose garden to the lawns in swift, short rushes, stopping now and again to stab at the earth with his yellow beak.
Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca (1938)
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Emmet: Good morning, Richard.
Richard: Good morning, Emmet. Oh look [emphatically pointing upwards] a blackbird!
BBC. Keeping Up Appearances: A Barbecue at Violet's (1995)
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Where thou shalt keep him waking with thy drum;
Thy drum, my Dol, thy drum; till he be tame
As the poor black-birds were in the great frost,
Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him
In the swan-skin coverlid, and cambric sheets,
Till he work honey and wax, my little God's-gift.
Ben Jonson. The Alchemist (1610)
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A faded old blackbird, with most of its feathers plucked out of its tail, sits on a dirty perch. He is dignified, grave, and motionless as a retired general. He has waved his claw in resignation to his captivity long ago, and looks at the blue sky with indifference. Probably, owing to this indifference, he is considered a sagacious bird.
Anton Chekhov. The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories
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a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells;
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He had dragged out from the corners of his memory some more fragments of forgotten rhymes. There was one about four-and-twenty blackbirds,
George Orwell. 1984 (1949)
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There are more crows than people now, Fran thought dazedly. If we don’t watch out, they’ll peck us right off the face of the earth. Revenge of the blackbirds.
Stephen King. The Stand (1990)
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