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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Of or relating to birds of the order Passeriformes, which includes perching birds and songbirds such as the jays, blackbirds, finches, warblers, and sparrows.
  2. n. A bird of the order Passeriformes.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Resembling or related to a sparrow; of or pertaining to the Passerinæ, in any sense, or the Passeres; passeriform.
  2. About as large as a sparrow: as, the passerine parrot, Psittacula passerina; the passerine ground-dove, Chamæpelia passerina; the passerine owl, Glaucidium passerinum. Also passeroid.
  3. n. A member of the Passerinæ, Passeres, or Passeriformes.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A large order (Passeriformes) of birds, comprising more than half of all bird species.
  2. n. A bird member of the Passeriformes order.
  3. adj. Of, or relating to a passerine or perching bird.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Of or pertaining to the Passeres.
  2. n. One of the Passeres.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. relating to or characteristic of the passeriform birds
  2. n. perching birds mostly small and living near the ground with feet having 4 toes arranged to allow for gripping the perch; most are songbirds; hatchlings are helpless

Etymologies

  1. Latin passerīnus, of sparrows, from passer, sparrow.

Examples

  • “The fossil passerine birds from the Pleistocene of Carpinteria, California.”

    Regulus satrapa - The Panda's Thumb

  • “In parallel, isotopic signatures of whole insect bodies and passerine muscular tissues were tracked throughout the year, serving as a control.”

    Archive 2007-02-01

  • “Moreover, a higher fraction of songbirds 'flesh in autumn than in spring was attributed to the more massive passerine migration in autumn, because both parents and offspring migrate then towards their wintering grounds in Africa, whereas in spring only birds having survived winter mortality return to their breeding area.”

    Archive 2007-02-01

  • “Coming soon: musings on a possible path to passerine parasitism.”

    The evolution of vampires

  • “IMO, passerine parasitism is mainly due to their altricial nature.”

    The evolution of vampires

  • “Moth larvae, particularly those in the family Geometridae (the “loopers” or “spanworms”), are a large component of the diet of many passerine birds in the boreal forest and near the forest/tundra margin.”

    Effects of climate change on the biodiversity of the Arctic

  • “Then, after a while, you see a duck, or a gull, or a passerine.”

    Japanese White-Eye

  • “Described in 1871 by A. Hume, the Ground tit is a weak-flying brown passerine of the Tibetan plateau, often superficially likened to a wheatear.”

    Archive 2006-05-01

  • “A passerine endemic to moist montane forests on New Guinea, Ifrita is remarkable for two reasons.”

    Archive 2006-05-01

  • “Batrachotoxin alkaloids from passerine birds: a second toxic bird genus (Ifrita kowaldi) from New Guinea.”

    Archive 2006-05-01

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‘passerine’ has been looked up 1209 times, loved by 1 person, added to 20 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 11.