Log in or Sign up
  1. hoopoe love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of several Old World birds of the family Upupidae, especially Upupa epops, having distinctively patterned plumage, a fanlike crest, and a slender, downward-curving bill.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A tenuirostral non-passerine bird of the family Upupidæ. The best-known species is Upupa epops, the common hoopoe of Europe, a bird about 12 inches long, with a slender, sharp, decurved bill about 2½ inches long, and a large, thin, compressed, and semicircular crest, erectile at will, on the head. The general color is buff of some shade, varied with black and white on the wings and tail. The bird is insectivorous and migratory, and is widely diffused in Europe, Asia, and Africa. There are several other species of Upupa. The birds of the neighboring family Irrisoridæ are known as wood-hoopoes. Also hooper.

Wiktionary

  1. n. An Old World bird, Upupa epops, known for its distinctive plumage, fanlike crest, and slender bill.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) A European bird of the genus Upupa (Upupa epops), having a beautiful crest, which it can erect or depress at pleasure, and a slender down-curving bill. Called also hoop, whoop. The name is also applied to several other species of the same genus and allied genera.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. any of several crested Old World birds with a slender downward-curved bill

Etymologies

  1. Alteration (influenced by Latin ūpupa) of obsolete hoop, from French huppe, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *ūppa, alteration of Latin upupa, ūpupa, of imitative origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Of all birds that hatch for themselves the hoopoe is the only one that builds no nest whatever; it gets into the hollow of the trunk of a tree, and lays its eggs there without making any sort of nest.”

    The History of Animals

  • “Commentators generally agree that the hoopoe is the bird intended.”

    Smith's Bible Dictionary

  • “a bird called a "hoopoe," according to the context.”

    The Captiva and the Mostellaria

  • “As I arrive, a hoopoe flounces down to the field alongside and, crest outspread, studiously feasts on worms.”

    The Guardian: Country Diary: Ariège

  • “Pisthetairos and Euelpides, frustrated with life in wartime Athens, search for Tereus, a king who had been changed into a hoopoe, in the realm of the birds in the sky.”

    Archive 2009-03-01

  • “For example, and this is just for openers, you can be dumb as a dodo, crazy as a coot, silly as a goose, a sitting duck, or simply a dupe from de huppe, the hoopoe, an Old World bird, said to be more stupid than most.”

    The Huffington Post: Hugh Rawson: Fowl Talk for the Holidays

  • “The poem is impossible to translate, although I have seen a version with 'amwolf' and 'waswolf' and once, years ago, I found an English equivalent based on a hoopoe rather than a werewolf which then became 'whompoe' and 'whosepoe'.”

    On be having

  • “Above it were the roller and bee-eater and hoopoe, all fabulously Mediterranean with hot aureate colors that were not, even in the late 1960s, permitted in Britain yet, except under license to the kingfisher.”

    Simon & Schuster: A Year on the Wing

  • “Wadi Al-Hitan is not separately noted but the desert species hoopoe lark Alaemon alaudipes, probably occurs.”

    Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley), Egypt

  • “It depicts a stream in a rocky environment with several partridges and a hoopoe (a small-medium bird with a distinctive crest).”

    Minoans in Manhattan

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘hoopoe’

  1. hoopoo

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. coraciiform bird

hyponyms (2)

Words that are more specific

  1. upupa epops
  1. euopean hoopoe

same context (15)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. francolin
  2. spink
  3. bullfinch
  1. prattler
  2. prater
  3. bulbul
  1. goldfinch
  2. dreamland
  3. honeybee
  1. oriole
  2. tern
  3. ballad-singer
  1. magpie
  2. men
  3. light-grey

reverse dictionary (17)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. upupa epops
  2. euopean hoopoe
  3. houp
  1. hoop
  2. tree-hoopoe
  3. wood-hoopoe
  1. hooper
  2. hoopoop
  3. fan-crest
  1. upupoid
  2. whoop
  3. coffin-bird
  1. wood hoopoe
  2. Tereus
  3. upupa
  1. wedge-tailed
  2. red-billed

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. bird
  1. name of the rose

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

tagging (1)

Words tagged ‘hoopoe’

  1. hoopoo

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘hoopoe’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • reesetee "The search for a national bird was organized by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and led by an Israeli ornithologist, Yossi Leshem. Dr. Leshem has created the International Center for Bird Migration in Latrun, the site of some very bloody battles in Israel’s War of Independence and home to a vast war memorial. The center’s hopeful slogan, printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English, is 'Migrating birds know no boundaries,' in contrast to the people on the ground, for whom boundaries are everything. This gives birdlife an added poignancy in Israel." -- NYT, "Will Peace Take Flight?", 6/10/08
    Jun 17, 2008

  • reesetee Nope--it's a real live bird, AZ. Fascinating creature. I hope to see a hoopoe some day. :-)

    A Rushdie list? Oooh. That'd be something. Mar 1, 2007

  • abraxaszugzwang And here I thought this was a made up word in Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." He did make up a bunch of words for that book, if I'm not mistaken. Someone must have a list. Mar 1, 2007

Tweets

Looking for tweets for hoopoe.

‘hoopoe’ has been looked up 1683 times, added to 15 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.