Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small European songbird (Fringilla coelebs), the male of which has predominantly reddish-brown plumage.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A common European bird of the genus Fringilla, F. cœlebs, whose pleasant short and oft-repeated song is heard from early spring to the middle of summer. The plumage of the male is very pretty. Chaffinches are useful in destroying aphids and caterpillars, though they injure various kinds of garden-plants. In winter they feed mostly on seeds. Also called chaffy, beech-finch, horse-finch, shell-apple, shelly, twink, spink, pink, etc.
- n. A name of the Australian birds of the genus Chloëbia, as C. gouldiæ.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A bird of Europe (Fringilla cœlebs), having a variety of very sweet songs, and highly valued as a cage bird; -- called also
copper finch .
WordNet 3.0
- n. small European finch with a cheerful song
Etymologies
- From chaff + finch. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English chaffinche, from Old English ceaffinc : ceaf, chaff, husk + finc, finch. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In a low tree I spotted a female chaffinch, which is one of the most common birds in Europe and is all but absent in Malta, owing to the country's widespread illegal finch trapping.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“House birds like the blue tit or the chaffinch eat seeds or insects, which are easy to find in the countryside when the weather is mild, as it has been for this winter so far.”
The Guardian: Why Britain's garden birds are staying in the country
“The warbling of a chaffinch flitting through the bushes.”
“All the flower colours here come from green, as do the songs of willow warbler, chaffinch and skylark.”
“Birds (12) buzzard; hobby; wood pigeon; crow; chiffchaff; blackbird; chaffinch; grey heron; gull (unspecified); green woodpecker; magpie; owl (unspecified);”
“Sparrows at the top end of a hedge, chaffinch in the middle and yellowhammers at the far end kept their abrasive little calls to themselves, flying only short loops from the hedge as if they knew the wind would sweep them away on its fierce currents to the east.”
“The chaffinch is best heard in isolation at between 1:49-1:51.”
The Guardian: Listen to the National Trust audio guide to Britain's bird species
“• Two different species seem to be competing, the chaffinch and wren.”
The Guardian: Listen to the National Trust audio guide to Britain's bird species
“It's a wren that kicks off proceedings at around 1:38 but again the chaffinch interrupts at 1:40.”
The Guardian: Listen to the National Trust audio guide to Britain's bird species
“While it's a chaffinch that begins to sing at around 1:26 it's the wren that carries on up to 1:30.”
The Guardian: Listen to the National Trust audio guide to Britain's bird species
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chaffinch’.
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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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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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Wordnik Words
Words that appear on the home page of Wordnik.
abaci, cabooleat, endomorphic, warfinger, varna, tautological, quesadillia, hub, oceanography, ken, ignimbrite, galactagogue and 110 more...
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cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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Dewitful
visions of witfulness and vision - a wise guise
revision, advisor, ideal, witty, witness, veda, druid, penguin, hadal, idea, story, history and 269 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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Blue remembered hills
Flora, fauna and other things common in the time and place where I grew up
millipede, dock leaf, snowdrop, nettle, ragwort, oxeye, moss, bindweed, lichen, hay, forget-me-not, bluebell and 62 more...
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flora and fauna
snapdragon, broomcorn, mollusk, moss, baleen, sorrel, bittersweet, thistle, heliotrope, indigo, persimmon, patchouli and 21 more...
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Strictly for the Birds
Bird names and other bird-related words.
starling, eagle, sparrow, owl, coot, vulture, hawk, buzzard, duck, swan, chicken, turkey and 25 more...
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words that sound insulting
but are not (usually)
Tweets
Looking for tweets for chaffinch.
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