Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A songbird (Dumetella carolinensis) of North and Central America having predominantly slate plumage and a cry like the mew of a cat.
- noun Any of various other species of birds having a similar cry, especially one of several birds of Australia and New Guinea related to the bowerbirds.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An Australian name of members of the genus Ælurœdus: so called on account of the resemblance of their notes to the calls of a cat.
- noun A wellknown oscine passerine bird of North America, Mimus caro-linensis, one of the mocking-thrushes, related to the mocking-bird.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) An American bird (
Galeoscoptes Carolinensis ), allied to the mocking bird, and like it capable of imitating the notes of other birds, but less perfectly. Its note resembles at times the mewing of a cat.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Either of two species of
American mockingbird relatives, the grey catbird and the black catbird. - noun Either of four species of
Australasian bowerbirds of the genera Ailuroedus and Scenopooetes. - noun A
babbler -like bird from eastern Africa, Parophasma galinieri.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various birds of the Australian region whose males build ornamented structures resembling bowers in order to attract females
- noun North American songbird whose call resembles a cat's mewing
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure," Anita Thompson said by phone, recounting that she was sitting in her husband's chair he called his catbird seat in the Rockies.
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Yesterday he called a catbird to within a few feet of him, by reproducing the notes as uttered and inflected by the female. "
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The thrasher, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows his inhospitality by espying your movements like a detective.
Bird Stories from Burroughs Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs
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The game was tight in the first half, but foul trouble put the Wildcats in the catbird seat.
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In an analysis, Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker explains why he thinks Rubio is in "the catbird seat" to win:
Dueling Partisan Polls Confirm A Toss-Up In Illinois Senate Race
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Her Majesty, dressed in canary yellow, watched it all from her catbird seat in the mezzanine.
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In an analysis, Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker explains why he thinks Rubio is in "the catbird seat" to win:
Dueling Partisan Polls Confirm A Toss-Up In Illinois Senate Race
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Coming from man who pretended nothing was wrong when the economy was collapsing and who consistently made a fool of himself and of us Americans whenever he went overseas to this "dangerous world"? catbird
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Things were fine, except for a catbird trapped inside the netting that covers the blueberry bushes.
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I want to convince you that teachers could be -- should be -- in the catbird seat.
chained_bear commented on the word catbird
Ooh! Image search on this one is pretty nice as well. (See also grey catbird.)
June 17, 2009