Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A North American wild duck (Aythya valisineria) having a reddish-brown head and neck and a whitish back.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A North American duck of the family Anatidæ and subfamily Fuligulinæ, the Fuligula (or Aristonetta) vallisneria, highly esteemed for the delicacy of its flesh. It is found in North America at large, breeding from the Northern States northward, and wintering in the Middle States and southward, being especially abundant in winter along the Atlantic coast, where it feeds much on the wild celery, Vallisneria spiralis, and is then in the best condition for the table. The name is derived from the color of the back, which is white, very finely vermiculated with narrow, zigzag, blackish bars or rows of dots. In general, the canvasback closely resembles the common pochard or redhead, Fuligula ferina, but the bill and head are differently shaped. The head is not coppery-red, as in the pochard, but dusky reddish-brown, and the size is greater.
Wiktionary
- n. A North American wild duck, Aythya valisineria, popular as a game bird.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A Species of duck (Aythya vallisneria), esteemed for the delicacy of its flesh. It visits the United States in autumn; particularly Chesapeake Bay and adjoining waters; -- so named from the markings of the plumage on its back.
WordNet 3.0
- n. North American wild duck valued for sport and food
Examples
“Never in this country has the writer tasted a more delicious breakfast dish than the blue winged teal of these waters, while the blackheads, mallards, and the variety which we call the canvasback were found in large numbers.”
The old plantation : how we lived in great house and cabin before the war,
“Don't you know, suh, that the burnin 'of a canvasback is a crime?”
“And they learned to eat roasted mallard and canvasback in the”
“They was like amateurs blazin 'away at canvasback.”
“My wife wants me to shoot a mallard for the wall, I would like to have a canvasback.”
“I would agree with a canvasback or a drake widgeon.”
“My current dawgz are great to the Nth power grand nephews of the canvasback chaser (Banks).”
“Yes | No | Report from dakohta14 wrote 9 weeks 15 hours ago either a pitail or a canvasback but i would also go for wigan”
“Hmm lets see Pintail, teal woodduck and canvasback come to mind.”
“He spent two hours bent over the roughly 170-year-old volumes, running a finger over a mended tear under the canvasback duck and staring into the beady red eye of the hairy-necked Californian vulture.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘canvasback’.
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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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More Bird Wirds: North America
Birds endemic to the United States and/or North America.
toucan, peacock, weaver, bullfinch, redpoll, siskin, crossbill, finch, rosy-finch, oriole, cowbird, blackbird and 213 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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Flora and Fauna
poa annua, pooka, vole, bestiary, popple, turgor, starling, sharpy, copse, coreopsis, clove, corvid and 351 more...
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Front and Back
backchat, backbone, backpack, backhoe, backfire, backhanded, breakfront, beachfront, drawback, effrontery, frontier, switchback and 196 more...
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Just ducky
bufflehead, merganser, canvasback, muscovy, smew, pochard, shoveler, goosander, teal, seaduck, sheldrake, mallard and 66 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for canvasback.
bilby Sport? Food? No wonder he's depressed. Jun 13, 2009