Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small Old World finch (Carduelis cannabina) having brownish plumage.
- n. A similar bird (Carpodacus mexicanus) of Mexico and the western United States. Also called house finch.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small songbird, Linaria or Linota cannabina, of the family Fringillidæ, inhabiting parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is about
inches long, and in extent of wings. The plumage is streaked with various gray, brown, and flaxen shades; the male in summer has the poll and breast rosy or red. The linnet is called gray, brown, and red or rose, according to sex and season; it has also many local or dialectal names. The yellow-billed linnet, mountain-linnet, or twite is another species of the same genus. L. flavirostris or L. montium. There are yet other species, and sundry related birds also are called linnets, as the redpolls of the genus Ægiothus. The bird called pine-linnet or pine-finch in the United States is a siskin, Chrysomitris pinus. - n. An ore which contains phosphate intermixed with carbonate of lead in variable proportions: so called on account of the linnet-like color due to the presence of the phosphate.
Wiktionary
- n. A small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae that derives its scientific name from its fondness for hemp, and its English name from its liking for seeds of flax, from which linen is made.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any one of several species of fringilline birds of the genera Linota, Acanthis, and allied genera, esp. the common European species (Linota cannabina), which, in full summer plumage, is chestnut brown above, with the breast more or less crimson. The feathers of its head are grayish brown, tipped with crimson. Called also
gray linnet ,red linnet ,rose linnet ,brown linnet ,lintie ,lintwhite ,gorse thatcher ,linnet finch , andgreater redpoll . The American redpoll linnet (Acanthis linaria) often has the crown and throat rosy. See redpoll, and twite.
WordNet 3.0
- n. small Old World finch whose male has a red breast and forehead
- n. small finch originally of the western United States and Mexico
Etymologies
- Obsolete French linette, from Old French, from lin, flax (from its feeding on flax seed), from Latin līnum; see librevema.gifno- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“The linnet is here, and the lark, and the yellowhammer,”
“For the voice that he swore 'ud out-call the linnet's”
“The English word linnet does not, to my mind, convey so much of simple beauty and of pastoral ideas as belong to our Scottish word LINTIE.”
Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character
“There is something very Arcadian and un-Cockney-like in the idea of linnet-singing in Lock's Fields.”
“Our linnet is a little larger than the English, with a clear, bell-like voice, as of a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil.”
“And I am sure you’ll not believe this, but a linnet is an English finch.”
“linnet'! oh, my poor Merle, you have taken wings indeed!”
“The latter, whose anger was unbounded, had seized a poignard at his girdle, and was about to have rushed on the impassable aggressor, when a guttural cry, like that of the _cilguero_, (a kind of linnet of”
“If you have never heard the lilting song of the linnet, spotted the distinctive plumage of a goldcrest, or waited for the whirring wings of a grey partridge, it is increasingly unlikely that you ever will.”
“The grey partridge has declined by 90% in the UK alone, and the linnet by 57%.”
jaime_d From "A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg" by Guy Davenport. Jan 19, 2010
yarb Dryden's "Ode on the Death of Purcell":
Mark how the lark and linnet sing:
With rival notes
They strain their warbling throats
To welcome in the spring. Sep 24, 2007