Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A sparrowlike migratory bird (Spiza americana) that breeds in central North America, the male of which has a yellow breast with a black patch on the throat.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The black-throated bunting, Spiza americana, a small member of the sparrow family.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) The American black-throated bunting (Spiza Americana).

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

  • noun The American black-throated bunting (Spiza americana).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative of its song.]

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Examples

  • The 200,000 ha dedicated to the rice crops in the western Venezuelan llanos attract huge flocks of migrant birds like the whistling ducks (Dendrocygna viduata, D. autumnalis, and D. bicolor) and the dickcissel (Spiza americana).

    Llanos 2007

  • Still the dickcissel, the lark sparrow and the indigo bunting continued their trio.

    Some Summer Days in Iowa Frederick John Lazell 1905

  • Near him is the dickcissel, incessantly singing from the twig of a crab-apple; these three make a tireless trio, singing each hour of the day.

    Some Summer Days in Iowa Frederick John Lazell 1905

  • My notes say that it is "a cross between the song of the chewink and that of dickcissel," and I shall stand by that assertion until I find good reason to disown it -- should that time ever come.

    Birds of the Rockies 1896

  • Birds documented on site include: upland sandpiper, burrowing owl, red-headed woodpecker, swamp sparrow, dickcissel, bobolink and marsh wren.

    JournalStar.com - News Articles 2010

  • The dickcissel, a species of bird, is endangered and protected under Pennsylvania's Game and

    CBS3.com - Philadelphia's Source For Breaking News, Weather, Traffic and Sports 2010

  • Birds documented on site include: upland sandpiper, burrowing owl, red-headed woodpecker, swamp sparrow, dickcissel, bobolink and marsh wren.

    JournalStar.com - News Articles 2010

  • Birds documented on site include: upland sandpiper, burrowing owl, red-headed woodpecker, swamp sparrow, dickcissel, bobolink and marsh wren.

    JournalStar.com - News Articles 2010

  • They conducted a two-year study of regional viability of three grassland birds: the dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow and eastern meadowlark.

    innovations-report 2009

  • Here an emerald streak and there a soft blue shadow, yonder a matchless olive green, and still farther a cool gray: spreading like an enamel over the hillside where the cattle have cropped them, and waving tall and fine above the crimsoning blossoms of the clover; glittering with countless gems in the morning dews and musicful with the happy songs and call notes of the quail and prairie chicken, the meadow lark, the bob-o-link, and the dickcissel whose young are safe among the protection of the myriad stems.

    Some Spring Days in Iowa Frederick John Lazell 1905

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