bittern

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“
Of the bittern, which is said to boom continually over the Friesland meres, I caught no glimpse and heard no sound From Leeuwarden I rode one Sunday morning by the steam-tram to St. Jacobie Parochie, a little village in the extreme north-west, where I proposed to take a walk upon the great dyke.

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of several wading birds of the genera Botaurus and Ixobrychus, having mottled brownish plumage and a deep booming cry in the male.
  2. noun The bitter water solution of bromides, magnesium, and calcium salts remaining after sodium chloride is crystallized out of seawater.

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Examples (50)

  • A wild and unnatural song of triumph, in a tone as hoarse as the croakings of the raven or the bittern, burst from his lips, of the valiant exploits of his tribe, his own among the number, in times long since--when the oak tree now dying with age was a little child, and the huge rocks were within the strength of a full grown warrior to poise. —  Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3)
  • She, whose feet were fleeter than the deer's, now walked feebly, and rested oft; she, whose tongue outchirped the merriest birds of the grove, and warbled sweeter music than the song-sparrow, now spoke in strains as gloomy and sad as the bittern that cries in the swamps when night is coming on, or the solitary bird of wisdom perched among the leaves of the oak. —  Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3)
  • The tongue can be quickly coiled up and put safely away beneath the lower part of the head Illustration: WHEN ONLY A FEW DAYS OLD, YOUNG BITTERN BEGIN TO STRIKE THE SAME ATTITUDE AS THEIR PARENTS THRUSTING THEIR BILLS UPWARDS AND DRAWING THEIR BODIES UP SO THAT THEY RESEMBLE A BUNCH OF REEDS The soft browns and blue-greens harmonise with the dull sheaths of the young reeds; the nestling bittern is thus completely camouflaged The Case of Chameleons The highest level at which rapid colour-change occurs is among lizards, and the finest exhibition of it is among the chameleons. —  The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told
  • "_I will make it a habitation for the bittern, and pools of water_,"[99] says one prophecy. —  Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity
  • The bittern is a bird of the East: it has a long beak, and its jaws are furnished with follicules, wherein it stores its food at first, after a time proceeding to digest it: it is a figure of the miser, who is excessively careful in hoarding up the necessaries of life. —  Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) From the Complete American Edition
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Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Alteration (perhaps influenced by tern1) of Middle English bitour, from Old French butor, possibly from Vulgar Latin *buti-taurus : Latin būtiō, buzzard + Latin taurus, bull (after its cry); see tauro- in Indo-European roots.
  2. From bitter.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English also bittorn, bitturn, with irreg. suffixed -n; earlier bitter, bittor, bittour, bytter, bitoure, buttour, bewter, boter, buture, etc. (English dial, bitter-bump, butter-bump, Scots buter, butter); from Middle English bitter, bitoure, byttoure, butturre, butor, botor, botore, etc., = D. Flemish butoor, formerly also putoor, from Old French butor, modern F. butor, = Italian bittore (Florio), a bittern, = Spanish bitor, a bittern, also a rail (bird), from Middle Latin butorius, a bittern: (1) erroneously supposed by some to be a corruption of a L. *botaurus (whence the New Latin Botaurus, assumed as the name of the genus), as if from bos, ox, + taurus, a bull, applied by Pliny to a bird that bellows like a bull; (2) also erroneously identified by some with Middle Latin bitorius, biturius, which, with a variant pintorus, is explained in Anglo-Saxon glosses by wrenna, wrænna (later English wren), and once by endling (later English arling); but (3) prob. a variant of Latin butio(n-) (later Portuguese butio), a bittern—a word supposed to be of imitative origin, related to bubere, cry like a bittern, bubo, an owl, etc. Cf. the equivalent English dial. butterbump, Scots miredrum, English dial. bog-bull, French taureau d'étang, ‘bull of the swamp,’ bæuf de marais, German moosochse, ‘ox of the marsh,’ etc.; and see boom, bump, bull, bawl, bellow, etc.
  2. apparently a dial. form (through *bitterin) of bittering, from bitter + -ing.
 

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/ˈbɪtərn/
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