chough

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“
But for that dead rascal at our feet I could beyond a doubt have plucked him like a chough, and here I was, still penniless Master Wheatman, I am not a man of many words, but what I say I stand by.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A crowlike Old World bird of the genus Pyrrhocorax, especially P. pyrrhocorax, having black plumage and red legs.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Something that shows theres no more difference in us furries from the rest of the nutjobs .. i mean people on the earth ... * chough cough* —  Hartford Advocate: News
  • The frost has also made life difficult for one of The Lizard's most celebrated, but elusive, wild residents - the Cornish chough. —  Earth Frenzy Radio Blog
  • A bigger group has a greater chance of successful survival in tough times, in chough logic.
  • Lecturing on birds, he strutted like the chough, made himself wings like the swallow; he was for the moment a cat, when he explained (not "in scorn") that engraving was the "art of scratch." —  The Life of John Ruskin
  • He shoved the fellow's throat with all his power, trying to break the nelson, but the pressure jammed his own head back till a hot pain streaked through the base of his skull At that moment a tremor ran through the tug, and there came a chough-choughing in her stack. —  The Cruise of the Dry Dock
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English choughe, choʒe, early Middle English cheo, from Anglo-Saxon ceó, apparently orig. *ceóh, *cóh, a chough (cf. Old French choe, choue, diminutive chouette, chouquette, also dial. choquar (Cotgrave), a chough, a daw, whence prob. Spanish chova, a chough, choya, a jackdaw: see chewet and Chouan; cf. Italian ciagola, a chough); a variant, with a final guttural, of Middle English ca, ka, co, ko, koo, kowe, etc., early modern English coe (see coe and caddow), both forms being orig. imitative of cawing: see caw .
 

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/tʃəf/
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