Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To utter a series of chirps.
- v. To make clucking or clicking sounds with the lips, as in urging on a horse.
- v. To sound with chirps.
- v. To make clucking sounds to.
- n. A series of chirps.
- n. A series of clucks or clicking sounds, such as those made to urge on a horse.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To chirp.
- n. A chirp.
- To quicken, enliven, or animate, as by making a chirping sound; cherup: as, to chirrup one's horses.
- To cheer or applaud (a public singer or the like, and for pay).
- To produce or utter chirpingly.
- To produce with compressed lips and suction a sharp explosive chirping sound by way of greeting or pleasing an infant or a cage-bird, or of coaxing and encouraging a dog or a horse, etc.
- To converse or sing in a lively manner or in sprightly tones.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To quicken or animate by chirping; to cherup.
- v. To chirp.
- n. The act of chirping; a chirp.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make high-pitched sounds
- n. a series of chirps
Etymologies
- Variant of chirp.
Examples
“Esther works on maintaining her attention only in the present; there is always the now—an endlessly adjusting smell of the wind, the shining of the stars, the deep five-call chirrup chirrup of the cicadas in the park.”
“Again, it should be known that the conventional "chirrup" (7) to quiet and "cluck" to rouse a horse are a sort of precept of the training school; and supposing any one from the beginning chose to associate soft soothing actions with the "cluck" sound, and harsh rousing actions with the "chirrup," the horse could be taught to rouse himself at the”
“At night other sounds are heard, less agreeable to the ear: the shrill "chirrup" of cicadas and tree-toads ringing so incessantly, that only when they cease do you become conscious of their existence; the dull "gluck-gluck" of the great bullfrog; the sharp cries of the heron and _qua-bird_; and the sepulchral screech of the great horned owl.”
“A "chirrup" can be sounded if pedestrians or cyclists seem unaware of its presence.”
“They chitter, chatter and chirrup, twitching their tails as if they were furry lariats.”
The Washington Post: In the urban game park, nut-gatherers rule
“Between each chirrup in a chorus of spring peepers, tiny pauses.”
“For an hour, our group wandered round Pripyat, stepping over broken glass and lumps of wood and stone, with the constant chirrup of our radiation counters providing warnings if we strayed too far.”
“He slightly slacked the reins on the restless, head-tossing animals, and without need of chirrup they took the weight of the light vehicle and passed up the hill and apprehensively on the inside of the purring machine.”
“It is at this stage that Zombie Isner starts to look like Zombie Mahut and the Zombie Umpire stops croaking and starts to chirrup like a grasshopper.”
“Decade after decade, poetry slips into its fifteen-hundred-copy-print-run oblivion and scattered identities on the Internet, and we hear not one chirrup about it from the leading thinkers or writers who have access to a dialogue with the greater public.”
The Huffington Post: Why Aren't Poets More Politically Active?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chirrup’.
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sound (quiet)
words for quiet sounds
( randomness, descriptive )sigh, murmur, whisper, whir, rustle, patter, hum, snap, hiss(sss), crackle, bleat, peep and 185 more...
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Sounds
Shhh! Listen! Did you hear that?
tintinnabulous, susurration, ululation, pandemonium, keening, tinkle, clang, caterwaul, twangle, twank, din, rumble and 34 more...
brtom A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive hands.
Joyce, Ulysses, 11 Jan 6, 2007