Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small songbird or warbler of various genera, especially the European garden warbler (Sylvia hortensis), that is eaten as a delicacy in Italy and France.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. 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. The application of the word is indeterminate; but it has been, perhaps, most frequently used in connection with the garden-warbler, Sylvia hortensis (Bechstein), Curruca hortensis of some authors.
- n. In extended use One of sundry small American birds, as some of those formerly included in a genus Ficedula.
- n. The European golden oriole, Oriolus galbula.
Wiktionary
- n. A small bird, Silvia hortensis, the figpecker.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (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.
Etymologies
- Italian (Wiktionary)
- Italian : beccare, to peck (from becco, beak, from Latin beccus; see beak) + fico, fig (from Latin fīcus). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant, an acre of land would be paid for it.”
“In the same way with the beccafico and the blackcap; these change into one another.”
“The beccafico appears about autumn, and the blackcap as soon as autumn has ended.”
“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
“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 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.”
“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).”
“There is Malvoisia sack," said the man in black, "and partridge, and beccafico.”
“There is Malvoisia sack,' said the man in black, 'and partridge, and beccafico.”
“The young birds themselves are said to be very delicate food, and not inferior in richness of flavour to the beccafico.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘beccafico’.
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cc
impeccable, accouterment, accoutrement, cc, access, baccivorous, desiccant, floccular, successor, occidental, laccolithic, laccolith and 143 more...
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birds
birds with singular names from
at least 9 English dictionariesaasvogel, aberdevine, accentor, accipiter, aepyornis, agami, albatross, alcatras, alcid, alcidine, amadavat, amokura and 1056 more...
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Grapes
sour grapes, grape, grapes, raisin, Nehi grape soda, Petit Verdot, Concord, Pinot Meunier, scuppernong, muscadine, Catawba, seedless and 112 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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