lapwing

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It is as nervous about the site of its nest as a lapwing is.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun Any of several Old World birds of the genus Vanellus related to the plovers, especially V. vanellus, having a narrow crest and erratic flight behavior. Also called green plover, pewit.

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Examples (50)

  • Moreover, the lapwing was doomed for ever and ever to fly from tussock to tussock, uttering the plaintive cry of 'Tyvit! —  Peeps at Many Lands: Norway
  • Their unconcerned flight, with crooked wings unbent, as if it were no matter to them whether they flew or floated, in its peculiar jerking motion somewhat reminds one of the lapwing--the heron has it, too, a little--as if aquatic or water-side birds had a common and distinct action of the wing Sometimes a porpoise comes along, but just beyond the reef; looking down on him from the verge of the cliff, his course can be watched. —  Nature Near London
  • And it was amid the deepest nocturnal silence that Santa ran like a lapwing back to the ranch-house and there fell upon a cot and sobbed--sobbed as though queens had hearts as simple ranchmen's wives have, and as though she would gladly make kings of prince-consorts, should they ride back again from over the hills and far away In the morning the capable, revolvered youth and his vaqueros set forth, driving the bunch of Sussex cattle across the prairies to the Rancho Seco. —  Heart of the West [Annotated]
  • Dorcas had hurried off like a lapwing Swan Day!" —  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863
  • He who whispers to the emperor William, Baron Cowper, Chancellor of England, whom the queen believed in because he was short-sighted like herself, or even more so, had committed to writing a memorandum commencing thus: "Two birds were subject to Solomon--a lapwing, the hudbud, who could speak all languages; and an eagle, the simourganka, who covered with the shadow of his wings a caravan of twenty thousand men. —  The Man Who Laughs
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. By folk etymology from Middle English lapwink, hoopoe, lapwing, from Old English hlēapewince : hlēapan, to leap + *wincan, to waver.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English lappewing, from Middle English lapwing, a eorrupt form, simulating wing (“because he laps or claps the wings so often”—Minsheu), of lapwink, lapwynke, lappewinke, lapwynche, properly *lepewinke, leepwynke, from Anglo-Saxon hleápewince, a lapwing, from hleápan, leap, run, + wince, from wincan, move aside, turn: see wink, wince. The name apparently refers to the bird's irregular, twitching mode of flight.
 

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/ˈlæpwɪŋ/
by American Heritage

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