Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several large flightless birds of the genus Casuarius of Australia, New Guinea, and adjacent areas, having a large bony projection on the top of the head and brightly colored wattles.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A large struthious bird of the genus Casuarius, subfamily Casuariinæ, and family Casuariidæ, inhabiting Australia and the Papuan islands.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A large bird, of the genus Casuarius, found in the east Indies. It is smaller and stouter than the ostrich. Its head is armed with a kind of helmet of horny substance, consisting of plates overlapping each other, and it has a group of long sharp spines on each wing which are used as defensive organs. It is a shy bird, and runs with great rapidity. Other species inhabit New Guinea, Australia, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large flightless bird of the genus Casuarius, native to Australia and New Guinea, with a characteristic bony crest on its head, and can be very dangerous.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun large black flightless bird of Australia and New Guinea having a horny head crest

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Malay kesuari.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Malay kasuari.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "'Do you think it really useful to discuss these remote hypotheses? If you were to ask me about the tertian ague or the osteology of the cassowary I could give you a reasonable answer...'"

    —Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate, 358

    February 9, 2008

  • From "A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg" by Guy Davenport:

    "And on a fine English day in the high Victorian year 1868, the year of the first bicycle race and the Trades Union Congress at Manchester, of The Moonstone and The Ring and the Book and of the siege of Magdela, four men gathered at Ashley House in London, a house leafy with Virginia creeper, its interior harmoniously dark and bright, like an English forest, dark with corners and doors and halls, with mahogany and teak and drapes as red as cherries, bright with windows, Indian brass, and lamps like moons, Lord Lindsay pollskepped with the hatchels of a cassowary, Lord Adare whose face looked like a silver teapot, and the galliard Captain Wynne."

    January 19, 2010