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Gulliver’s Travels vocabulary
7 birds and/or bird terms
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kite
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synonyms: puttock ???
tags: [avian]
► definition
Definition:1. a common name applied to one of several birds of prey that soar over fields scouting for food.2. figuratively, a rapacious person
image: By William H. Majoros (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 )],sound file: Paul Marvin, XC326528. Accessible at https://www.xeno-canto.org/326528Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
► uses
Uses:
Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made a stoop at me, and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a thick espalier, he would have certainly carried me away in his talons.
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World (1726)
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Unoka loved it all, and he loved the first kites that returned with the dry season, and the children who sang songs of welcome to them. He would remember his own childhood, how he had often wandered around looking for a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky.
Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart, p.5 (1958)
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To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!
Shakespeare. Hamlet
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Ga. Good. Who is that?
M. Mery. Roister Doister that doughtie kite.
C. Custance. Fye, I can scarce abide ye shoulde his name recite.
Nicholas Udall. Roister Doister
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In the east the first rays of the rising sun shone out, cutting their way through the feathery clouds, and the song of the lark was heard in the sky. Now not one but three kites were hovering over the steppe at a respectful distance from one another.
Anton Chekhov. Love and Other Stories
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