Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several tropical American birds of the family Momotidae, usually having green and blue plumage with long tail feathers that spread out at the tip.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A bird of the family Momotidæ or Prionitidæ; a sawbill. These birds are peculiar to America, inhabiting tropical and subtropical forests, and ranging north nearly or quite to Texas. The average size is about that of the jays, to which they have some superficial resemblance; but they are more like the bee-eaters of the Old World, Meropidæ, having a similar slender form, with long tail, of which the middle feathers project beyond the rest and are spatulate, forming a kind of racket. The bill is serrate, the coloration is variegated, chiefly greenish and bluish. These birds are of solitary habits, like kingfishers, to which they are closely related; they feed upon reptiles, insects, and fruits. See cut under
Momotus .
Wiktionary
- n. Any bird in the taxonomic family Momotidae, endemic to the neotropics.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of long-tailed, passerine birds of the genus Momotus, having a strong serrated beak. In most of the species the two long middle tail feathers are racket-shaped at the tip, when mature. The bird itself is said by some writers to trim them into this shape. They feed on insects, reptiles, and fruit, and are found from Mexico to Brazil. The name is derived from its note.
WordNet 3.0
- n. tropical American bird resembling a blue jay and having greenish and bluish plumage
Etymologies
- Onomatopoeic, from American Spanish. (Wiktionary)
- New Latin motmot, probably of imitative origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My favorites were the toco toucan, motmot, currasows, Yucatan jay, cinnamon-colored cuckoo, and pileated woodpecker and violaceous trogon (a relative of the resplendent quetzal).”
“Every year 70,000 tourists walk among the dripping forests, where relative humidity routinely reaches 100 percent, and marvel at the wealth of wildlife, from the ruby red-eyed tree frog to the sonorous blue-crowned motmot.”
“The male motmot performs a pendulum-like display, swinging the racket-shaped tail feathers from side to side, and calling a low, resonant 'woop-woop-woop' in perfect time to the swings.”
“More on the motmot can be found here HT John at Prairie Ice.”
“Reader, falconer, and birder Stacia Novy, in the military in Honduras, sent a photo of herself with the central tail feathers of a motmot that she picked up.”
“This time, though, we decided that instead of hiking down from the parking lot we would hike up and try our luck at finding everyone's third motmot species of the trip, the more retiring Before reaching the park proper, however, we stopped along the entrance road to see what birds we might find in the area around the small lake created by a huge earthen dam.”
“Keel-billed Motmot is inherently cool just by being a motmot, it is not in any way more cool than other motmots, so it is no great disaster that there is no picture to share (or so I rationalize anyway).”
“Guardabarranco, or Turquoise browed motmot, is the name of the official bird of Nicaragua.”
“Birds that visit mangroves during migration include spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularia), red-lored Amazon (Amazona autumnalis), snowy cotinga (Carpodectes nitidus), Wilson's plover (Charadrius wilsonia), green kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana), lesser nighthawk (Chordeiles acutipennis), common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor), keel-billed motmot (Electron carintum), and osprey (Pandion haliaetus) just to name a few.”
“The bulbul sings bright nightly lays no motmot ever hears while matta matta slowly swims in a wet, warm water sphere.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘motmot’.
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Of Imitative Origin
Words formed in imitation of the sound of the things they signify.
bawl, biff, blizzard, blob, blooper, bob, boff, bomb, bonkers, boo, borborygmus, brouhaha and 148 more...
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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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be-tween the wings
monoplane, wheatear, synallaxine, fritillary, nightjar, morning-a-jar, evening-jarred, fieldfare, centre, accipiter, motmot, geometrid and 43 more...
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Here's a tip for you.
tip, tips, Tip, tipping, tip jar, tip-cat, tip-cheese, Tippi Hedren, tipi, Tipperary, tipsy, Tip O'Neill and 75 more...
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Flightful Forays
trips from El Nido
vireo, tanager, scaup, lark, killdear, falcon, cormorant, becard, avocet, accipiter, peregrine, remex and 135 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2024 more...
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End in -ot
Just what it says. Words that end in -ot.
wainscot, ascot, marmot, jot, ocelot, spot, blot, scot, lot, shot, dot, snot and 219 more...
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Isograms
Words with each letter repeated the same number of times. The pattern of repetition is tagged: 1212, 1221, 121122, 122121, 121233, 122133, 123123, 123132, 123213, 123231, 123312, 123321, 12123434, ...
deeded, sestettes, geggee, appeases, caucasus, isis, cancan, intestines, mesosome, palpal, valval, mama and 154 more...
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Still More Bird Wirds
A work in progress....Birds from around the world (other than endemic to North America).
barbet, hornbill, trogon, bee-eater, bristlehead, wren-babbler, stubtail, blackeye, bush warbler, cassowary, bowerbird, bird-of-paradise and 722 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for motmot.
fbharjo a tip of the tails Apr 1, 2012
reesetee Why thanks, c_b. I knew you'd come up with a great definition for motmot. :-) Feb 15, 2007
chained_bear Any of several Central and South American birds comprising the family Momotidae (allied to the kingfishers), the members of which have colourful plumage with two long racket-shaped tail feathers and are mainly insectivorous. Feb 15, 2007