Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various large, long-legged Old World game birds of the family Otididae that frequent dry, open, grassy plains.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A large grallatorial bird of the family Otididœ, or of the genus Otis in a wide sense. There are about 20 species, mostly of Africa, several of India, one of Australia, and three properly European. The best-known is the great bustard, Otis tarda, of Europe and Africa, noted as the largest European bird, the male often weighing 30 pounds, and having a length of about 4 feet and a stretch of wings of 6 or 7 feet. The little bustard is Otis tetrax of southern Europe. The houbara, O. houbara, is a north African and Arabian species, occurring also in southern Europe, and the allied Indian species, O. macqueeni, has sometimes been taken in Europe. O. aurita and O. bengalensis are also Asiatic. The Australian species is O. australis. The rest are African. Only the first-named two belong to the restricted genus Otis; the remainder are sometimes allocated to a genus Eupodotis, sometimes split into six to nine different genera. See also cut under
Eupodotis . - n. A name in Canada of the common wild goose, Bernicla canadensis, A. Newton.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of several large terrestrial birds of the family Otididae that inhabit dry open country and steppes in the Old World.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A bird of the genus Otis.
WordNet 3.0
- n. large heavy-bodied chiefly terrestrial game bird capable of powerful swift flight; classified with wading birds but frequents grassy steppes
Etymologies
- Middle English, from blend of Old French bistarde and Old French oustarde, both from Latin avis tarda : avis, bird; tarda, feminine of tardus, slow. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“(FYI a bustard is a bird not what you may have thought!) +1 Good Comment?”
“The bustard is a pelican-like bird that was completely eliminated from the British Isles by hunters, and only exists in those parts of Europe, like Germany and Hungary, where blood sport had been mainly confined to killing Jews, Gypsies, and the disabled.”
“According to their description, they are as large as a bustard, which is a kind of goose, having the neck longer and twice as large as those with us.”
“There were innumerable pigeons and a few Floricans (a kind of bustard -- considered the best eating game -- bird in India).”
“A kind of bustard, with a very strong bill, and not larger than a hen, was numerous at Bountiful Island; and appeared to subsist upon the young turtle.”
“Dick and Grosvenor had already seen enough of the surrounding country during their two days 'foraging expedition to have come to the conclusion that conditions would now improve with every mile of progress, and this conclusion was fully borne out by their first day's experiences, the country gradually becoming more hilly and broken, with small watercourses occurring at steadily decreasing intervals, with more and richer grass at every mile of their progress, until by the end of the day they once more found themselves in a district that might fairly be termed fertile, while a few head of game -- bucks and a brace of paow (a kind of bustard) -- had been seen.”
“Or what about the fact that once upon a time the well-to-do liked to indulge in something called the Roti Sans Pareil, which involved playing Russian dolls with game birds – a hulking bustard on the outside, teeny tiny garden warbler at the very centre.”
“We got him!" a head popped in and shouted "the bustard was trying to get away from the rooftop, we got him.”
The Huffington Post: Fatemeh Keshavarz: Giggling in Fallujah
“Tell them we'll get the bustard, we know he makes roadside bombs, we even know where he gets his staff ... we'll get him.”
The Huffington Post: Fatemeh Keshavarz: Giggling in Fallujah
“One animal practising its duck-and-cover technique here is the remarkable great bustard, recently reintroduced to the UK after its local extinction two centuries ago.”
The Guardian: Magic circles: walking from Avebury to Stonehenge
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bustard’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 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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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
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Words that sound dirty but aren't.
When you want to be pedantic AND childish.
titular, masticate, condiment, titmouse, penal, formication, social intercourse, assassination, cacophony, lucubrate, rectify, banal and 131 more...
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tardiness
mustard, retard, bastard, leotard, custard, unitard, petard, dastard, bustard, dotard, tardy, tardis and 9 more...
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1800 Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick and Hi...
Bizarre stuff found there. Note that archaic terms are occasionally not spelled the way we spell them today; in these cases I've tried to link to the modernized spelling (where known) on the word p...
musk-bull, urus, zebu, cameleopard, ratel, suricate, wombach, saragoy, murine, ternate, coach dog, comforter and 91 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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Rabelation
Words and phrases from Urquhart and Motteaux's matchless translation of Rabelais' "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (available here).
Make bold with suggestions down in the comment box.bum-gut, torchecul, septembral juice, turdy, linkie pinkie, neat's tongues, variorum, fanfreluches, well-mouthed wench, the close buttock..., rataconniculation, beeves and 300 more...
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Australian Fauna
endemic species of terra australis
phascogale, wombat, ornithoryncus, wambenger, tuan, potoroo, platypus, echidna, bilby, bandicoot, antechinus, numbat and 101 more...
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Still More Bird Wirds
A work in progress....Birds from around the world (other than endemic to North America).
barbet, hornbill, trogon, bee-eater, bristlehead, wren-babbler, stubtail, blackeye, bush warbler, cassowary, bowerbird, bird-of-paradise and 722 more...
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18th century british
from Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's School for Scandal ...
intimacy, piety, partiality, sentimental, plasters, mawkish, drab, spurious, sententious, bitters, folly, virtue and 132 more...
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Words that sound dirty, but aren't
Inspired by a Candid Camera sketch.
horehound, fugue, ramrod, jocular, thespian, titmouse, masticate, pussyfoot, angina, booby, formicate, hoar and 64 more...
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Almost Dirty Words
Words that seem nasty, but aren't. Don't like it? Well... you're full of cockles.
bagasse, nosegay, jaculate, titmouse, titular, niggardly, masticate, angina, philatelist, fallacious, Uranus, rectory and 69 more...
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so near and yet so far
words that differ by only one letter, but which have quite different meanings
deadliness, headlines, grave, rave, grace, grape, graze, grate, gravy, bother, formication, fornication and 12 more...
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Best birds
bufflehead, iiwi, timberdoodle, kiskadee, hootamaganzy, beccaccia, hookumpake, kagu, checkerbelly, gallirex, pluvian, tinamou and 23 more...
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Perfectly good words my mom wouldn't ...
shiitake, pismire, niggard, fescue, bustard, bushtit, asinine, hoarfrost
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bustard.
tbtabby The most inglorious of all the game birds. Aug 15, 2011
brtom Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
But of all the gay birds in the air,
Here’s a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
Goldsmith, She Stoops, I Jan 8, 2007