Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several usually white herons of the genera Bubulcus, Casmerodius, Egretta, and related genera, characteristically having long, showy, drooping plumes during the breeding season.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A name common to those species of herons which have long, loose-webbed plumes, forming tufts on the head and neck, or a flowing train from the back.
- n. A heron's plume.
- n. A topknot, plume, or bunch of long feathers upon the head of a bird; a plumicorn: as, the egrets of an owl.
- n. Same as aigret, 2.
- n. In botany, the flying, feathery, or hairy down of seeds, as the down of the thistle.
- n. A monkey, Macacus cynomolgus, an East Indian species commonly seen in confinement.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various wading birds of the genera Egretta or Ardea that includes herons, many of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season.
- n. A plume or tuft of feathers worn as a part of a headdress, or anything imitating such an ornament; an aigrette.
- n. botany The flying feathery or hairy crown of seeds or achenes, such as the down of the thistle.
- n. zoology, obsolete A kind of ape with a plume on the head.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) The name of several species of herons which bear plumes on the back. They are generally white. Among the best known species are the American egret (Ardea egretta syn. Herodias egretta); the great egret (Ardea alba); the little egret (Ardea garzetta), of Europe; and the American snowy egret (Ardea candidissima).
- n. A plume or tuft of feathers worn as a part of a headdress, or anything imitating such an ornament; an aigrette.
- n. (Bot.) The flying feathery or hairy crown of seeds or achenes, as the down of the thistle.
- n. (Zoöl.) A kind of ape.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various usually white herons having long plumes during breeding season
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman egret, Old French aigrette ("egret"), from Old Provençal aigreta, diminutive of aigron ("heron"), from Frankish *haigro (“heron”). Cognate with Old High German heigaro ("heron"), Old English hrāgra ("heron"). More at heron. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French aigrette, from Old Provençal aigreta, from aigron, heron, of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It was a mark of beauty in Lambanein to have what they called an egret’s neck; the arthygater didn’t possess one, so she exaggerated it by other means.”
“I try to go too, and there comes along what you call the egret of a thistle, that I get on to, and it floats with me right into my bed, and I wake up.””
“I don’t get why he doesn’t know anything about grebes … Still that crazy reddish egret is way cooler ….”
“Just rereading the post I think the person who said la garza is correct, I had read largasa but since it says lagarsa it is La Garza for sure! the garza is the white type egret you see on the lakes so since the plate has an egret and a fish, it is the name of the bird.”
“The card game mentioning 'la garsa' is exactly what he is trying to replicate ... only the egret hasn't caught the fish in his mouth ....”
“For the very first time, I noticed a white egret standing motionless by a man-made waterfall on the creek.”
The Huffington Post: May Benatar, Ph.D., L.C.S.W.: Adaptation Is Lifelong: The White Egret and You
“After a moment, the little egret pranced out from behind its twiggy curtain.”
“It reached a concrete culvert and I expected the egret – all angles and points – to swoop up and away on great sheets for wings.”
“I can still – just – remember every egret sighting within walking distance.”
“But the map is turning white, for the egret's climate change-driven spread north is happening apace.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘egret’.
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birds
birds with singular names from
at least 9 English dictionariesaasvogel, aberdevine, accentor, accipiter, aepyornis, agami, albatross, alcatras, alcid, alcidine, amadavat, amokura and 1056 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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More Bird Wirds: North America
Birds endemic to the United States and/or North America.
toucan, peacock, weaver, bullfinch, redpoll, siskin, crossbill, finch, rosy-finch, oriole, cowbird, blackbird and 213 more...
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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diioxyde's Words
macabre, egypt, egyptology, queen, love, sex, sister, lover, web, cobweb, line, circle and 223 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 848 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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tomax's Words
legerdemain, yayo, extravasation, wont, faze, coxswain, concomitant, enclave, unguent, rhabdomyolysis, effluent, puerile and 432 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
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hannah's Words
perpetuity, portmanteau, scintillate, elucidate, surreptitious, reticulate, cavilling, laudatory, milquetoast, inimitable, schadenfreude, ancillary and 212 more...
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Seven
turnskin, therianthrope, mimic, mimical, mimetic, animagus, selkie, incantatory, cynanthrope, therianthropy, nagual, pooka and 200 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for egret.

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