Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various small songbirds that are eaten as a delicacy in Italy and France.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An old and disused name of sundry small European birds, chiefly of the family Sylviidæ, or warblers, which peck figs, or were supposed to do so.
- noun In extended use One of sundry small American birds, as some of those formerly included in a genus Ficedula.
- noun The European golden oriole, Oriolus galbula.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A small bird. (
Silvia hortensis ), which is highly prized by the Italians for the delicacy of its flesh in the autumn, when it has fed on figs, grapes, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A small bird, Silvia hortensis, the
figpecker .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant, an acre of land would be paid for it.
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In the same way with the beccafico and the blackcap; these change into one another.
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The beccafico appears about autumn, and the blackcap as soon as autumn has ended.
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The doctor was a stickler for quality as well as quantity; the memory of his claret and beccafico days still clung to him, like the scent of the roses to Tom Moore's broken gallipot: he was curious in condiments, and whilst devouring, grumbled at the unseasoned viands of Tahiti.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 Various
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I have considered the dormice served with honey and poppy-seed and the grape-fed beccafico dressed with _garum piperatum_, which, according to Petronius, were served at Trimalchio's banquet.
The Orchard of Tears Sax Rohmer 1921
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The warm southern winds were full of their warbling -- beccafico, loriot, merle, citronelle, woodlark, nightingale, -- every tree, copse and tuft of grass held a tiny minstrel.
Masters of the Guild L. Lamprey 1910
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He can talk of sausages and silkworms, and forestry and agriculture and sheep-grazing, and how they catch porcupines and cure warts and manufacture manna; he knows about the evil eye and witches and the fata morgana and the tarantula spider, about figs in ancient and modern times and the fig-pecker bird -- that bird you eat bones and all, the focetola or beccafico (garden warbler).
Alone Norman Douglas 1910
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"There is Malvoisia sack," said the man in black, "and partridge, and beccafico."
Lavengro the Scholar - the Gypsy - the Priest George Henry Borrow 1842
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"There is Malvoisia sack," said the man in black, "and partridge, and beccafico."
Lavengro The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest George Henry Borrow 1842
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'There is Malvoisia sack,' said the man in black, 'and partridge, and beccafico.'
Lavengro; the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest George Henry Borrow 1842
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