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Alice in Wonderland vocabulary

3 birds and/or bird terms

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magpie: synonyms: Pica pica ???

tags: [avian]

► definition

Definition:

birds in the crow family, considered to be thieving, intelligent birds.

^{photo: by Pierre-Selim under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.}
^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pica_pica_-_Compans_Caffarelli_-_2012-03-16.jpg}
^{sound file:by Joost van Bruggen, XC432921. Accessible at https://www.xeno-canto.org/432921.}
^{license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/}

► uses

Uses:

[She] looked more birdlike than usual—favoring one leg, then another, her head moving all around the room as her gaze alighted on different objects, angles—a magpie looking to line her nest.

Gillian Flynn. Gone Girl, p.172 (2012)

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“They do say, too, that he’s thievish as a magpie, but it doesn’t do to believe all one hears.

Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 3]

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you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing!

Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)

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one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, 'I really must be getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my throat!'

Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland (1865)

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it's barely dawn now, deathly quiet except for the occasional outburst of chatter from the magpies in the trees above my head.