Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as xebec.
  • noun A name for the least flycatcher, Empidonax minutus: used chiefly in New England.

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

  • noun (Naut.) See chebacco.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A small American bird (Empidonax minimus); the least flycatcher.

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

  • noun A small American bird (Empidonax minimus); the least flycatcher.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Imitative of its note.

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Examples

  • The least flycatcher has another name which at once distinguishes him -- chebec '.

    The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919

  • A pair of the least fly-catchers, the bird which says chebec, chebec, and is a small edition of the pewee, one season built their nest where

    Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and Other Papers John Burroughs 1879

  • For example, I have often seen the least flycatcher (a very unromantic-looking body, surely) when he was almost beside himself; flying in a circle, and repeating breathlessly his emphatic _chebec_.

    Birds in the Bush Bradford Torrey 1877

  • His _killic_ (so written in the books, and I do not know how to improve upon it) resembles the _chebec_ of the least flycatcher, though much less emphatic, as well as much less frequently uttered, while his

    The Foot-path Way Bradford Torrey 1877

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