Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A crowlike Old World bird of the genus Pyrrhocorax, especially P. pyrrhocorax, having black plumage and red legs.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An oscine passerine bird of the family Corvidæ, the red-legged or Cornish crow, Fregilus or Pyrrhocorax graculus, of a black color, with red feet and beak. It is of very extensive though irregular distribution. Though a corvine bird, it has some relationship with the starlings. Also called, specifically, Cornish chough. There are other species, natives of Australia, Java, etc. Palsgrave applies the name to a young crow.
Wiktionary
- n. Two species of bird of the genus Pyrrhocorax in the crow family Corvidae that breed mainly in high mountains and on coastal sea cliffs of Eurasia.
- n. A monotypic bird genus in the Australian mud-nest builders family, Corcoracidae, that inhabits dry woodlands.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A bird of the Crow family (Fregilus graculus) of Europe. It is of a black color, with a long, slender, curved bill and red legs; -- also called
chauk ,chauk-daw ,chocard ,Cornish chough ,red-legged crow . The name is also applied to several allied birds, as theAlpine chough .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a European corvine bird of small or medium size with red legs and glossy black plumage
Etymologies
- Middle English.
Examples
“The Lancaster forces were routed and King Henry, the poor wandering lost King Henry who does not know fully where he is, even when he is in his palace at Whitehall, has run away into the moors of Northumberland, a price on his head as if he were an outlaw, without attendants, without friends, without even followers, like a borderer rebel as wild as a chough.”
“Lear, the old buffer, you wonder his daughters didn't treat him rougher, the old chough, the old chuffer!”
“I put the baby chough in a box and drove across town to the RSPCA.”
“The vet just called to say she had to euthanise the baby chough, because it turned out s/he had a broken wing as well as the leg and the wing was too damaged to fix.”
“I'm really impressed that you took the baby chough to the RSPCA, though - lots of people wouldn't have.”
“If you haven't the slightest notion what a chough is or how to pronounce it, read his post.”
“bore: underground well brolga: large, gray crane bull bar: heavy bar fixed to the front of a vehicle capsule: infant car seat caravan: trailer chock-a-block: completely full chough: crowlike bird coldie: can of beer cooee: traditional Australian call of “halloo!””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chough’.
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Ugh!
the ending, that is
clough, enough, cough, through, though, thorough, slough, chough, hough, tough, although, borough and 11 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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1800 Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick and His School
Bizarre stuff found there. Note that archaic terms are occasionally not spelled the way we spell them today; in these cases I've tried to link to the modernized spelling (where known) on the word p...
musk-bull, urus, zebu, cameleopard, ratel, suricate, wombach, saragoy, murine, ternate, coach dog, comforter and 91 more...
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bilby's Words
pandemic, whirl, guffaw, ethereal, feisty, dunt, ephemeral, pule, flipergebet, prink, maunder, gammon and 1016 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Make Someday
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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TheLastGoodNameLeft
The Last Good Words Left
ephemera, gammon, errata, ellipses, octopi, heteronormative, polyp, intersectionality, theses, california, halfback, fullback and 555 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 721 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2707 more...
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birds which sound their names
or part of them. I'm a bit sleepy, I think these need checking
kittiwake, chiffchaff, turtle dove, cuckoo, twite, hadeda ibis, crex crex, whippoorwill, peewit, chickadee, chough, knot and 35 more...
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birdie
bird names that are fun to say
coot, grackle, hoatzin, jay, barnacle goose, skua, rook, grosbeak, junco, chickadee, waxwing, nuthatch and 49 more...
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By Hook or By Crook
From the book by David Crystal
cleek, cleeky, slew, lay-by, daylights, blurb, frequentness, beedom, cob, sociable, calash, bracteate and 28 more...
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birds
oyster-catcher, curlew, chough, stonechat, corncraik, kittiwake, shearwater, fulmar, gannet, corncrake, fieldfare, wren and 4 more...
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on the wing


--Patrick O'Brian, The Letter of Marque, 161 Feb 29, 2008
"After some moments of hesitation, with the men looking at one another with doubtful faces, Auden said, 'The rub is he is such a fine gentleman, sir; we are only simple chaps, and should not know what to say.'
"'You must go up to him,' said Jack, 'and pull off your hats, as is right, and one of you must say, "We ask your pardon, sir, for answering chough, and murmuring."'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Letter of Marque, 146
Feb 29, 2008