Pigeon definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (29)

American Heritage Dictionary (3)

noun Any of various birds of the widely distributed family Columbidae, characteristically having plump bodies, small heads, and short legs, especially the rock dove or any of its domesticated varieties.
noun Slang One who is easily swindled; a dupe.
noun An object of special concern; an affair or matter.

Century Dictionary (23)

Any bird of the family Columbidæ (which see for technical characters); a dove. The species are several hundred in number, and are found in nearly all parts of the world. Many kinds are distinguished by qualifying terms, as fruit-pigeon, ground-pigeon, passenger-pigeon, nutmeg-pigeon, rock-pigeon, and any of them may be called dove, as stock-dove, rock-dove, ring-dove, turtle-dove, wood-dove. (See the compound names, and dove.) Few species are commonly seen in confinement, except in very extensive aviaries, one of the commonest being the ring-dove; but the rock-pigeon or rock-dove, Columba livia, is everywhere thoroughly domesticated, and perhaps all the artificial varieties have been produced by careful breeding from this one. Fancy pigeons have naturally received many fanciful names of their breeds, strains, and endless color-variations. Some of these names are — from localities, actual or alleged, as Antwerps, barbs (from Barbary), Brunswicks, Burmeses, Damascenes, Florentines, Lahores, Orientals, Swabians; from resemblance to other birds, as magpies, owls, starlings, swallows, swifts; from characteristic actions, as carriers, croppers, dragoons, homers, pouters, rollers, shakers, trumpeters, tumblers: from peculiarities of size, shape, or color, as capuchins, fantails (see cut under fantail), fire-pigeons, frills or frillbacks, helmets, hyacinths, ice-pigeons, jacobins (see cut under jacobin), nuns, porcelains, priests, runts, shields, turbits. Some names, like archangel, maumet, and victoria, are unclassifiable, and others are quite peculiar to fanciers' nomenclature, as blondinette, silverette, and turbitteen. Young pigeons are known as squabs and squealers. The name pigeon is also used, with a qualifying word, to designate som bird like or likened to a pigeon, as prairie-pigeon, sea-pigeon, etc.
A simpleton to be swindled; a gull: opposed to rook. See stool-pigeon. [Slang.]
Barbary pigeon. Same as barb, 2.

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The next morning we started for home by what was known as the pigeon-roost route, in order to save toll and other expenses. — Biography of a Slave
It is the mental emotional character of the pigeon which is changed when the physiologist cuts off parts of his brain. — Psychotherapy
But it would be a mistake to call the pigeon, because of this, an unutterably stupid bird. — The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told
And feeling that he was growing melancholy, he determined to subdue the propensity, and to that end commenced cutting the complicated figure entitled a pigeon-wing. — The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 Volume 23, Number 1
The green scum from the nearest gutter, a handful of weed from a pond, a bean-plant, some fresh-water mud, a frog, and a pigeon were the ultimate authorities of his course. — Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work

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duck · fowl · pheasant · turkey · rabbit · swan · hen · owl · goat · dove · peacock · deer

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

Middle English, from Old French pijon, probably from Vulgar Latin *pībiō, pībiōn-, alteration of Late Latin pīpiō, young chirping bird, squab, from pīpīre, to chirp.
Alteration of pidgin.

Century Dictionary (2)

Early modern English also pidgeon, pigion; from Middle English pigeon, pijon, pygeon, pyjon, from Old French pigeon, pyjon, pynjon, pignon, also pipion, French pigeon = Provencal pijon = Spanish pichon = Italian piccione, pippione, a pigeon, a young bird, from Latin pipio(n-), a young piping or chirping bird, a squab, from pipire, chirp: see pipe, peep. For the form, cf.widgeon. The native (Anglo-Saxon) word for ‘pigeon’ is dove: see dove.
from pigeon, n.

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