junco

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
The tree sparrow, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, field sparrow and snowbird or junco are all great weed-seed destroyers.

View all »
Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun Any of various small North American birds of the genus Junco, having predominantly gray plumage, a gray or black head, and white outer tail feathers.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

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

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Recently a sharp-shinned hawk captured, killed and ate a black-eyed junco in our backyard.
  • Why did that particular junco, rather than one of the other dozens of small birds �gold finches, house finches, pine siskins, redpolls, tree sparrows, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers and tufted titmice, as well as juncos � that visit our feeders become prey to that hawk?
  • Or was the unlucky junco sick or recovering from an injury which impaired its ability to flee or seek cover from danger?
  • An evolutionary biologist might raise the possibility that the slaughtered junco inherited poor genes, which made it less able to identify the presence of danger quickly and to undertake appropriate avoidance behavior or retarded its ability to flee a pursuer.
  • In the grand scheme of things, the biologist would argue, if the dead junco had not yet parented offspring, its death might have prevented the passing on of inferior genes, and the lessening of the capacity of its species to survive.
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 50 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Spanish, reed, from Latin iuncus.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Mexican Spanish use of Spanish junco, a rush: see junk.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ˈhunkoʊ/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

Conjuring · scalar · treacle · echo · hoary

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich