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  1. rufous love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Strong yellowish pink to moderate orange; reddish.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Of a dull-red color; red but somewhat deficient in chroma: thus, a bay or chestnut horse is rufous; Venetian red is rufous. It enters into the specific name of many animals, technically called rufus, rufescens, etc.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. of a red, reddish colour

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Reddish; of a yellowish red or brownish red color; tawny.

Etymologies

  1. From Latin rufus ("red"). (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin rūfus, red; see reudh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The remaining laughing-thrushes are known as the rufous-chinned”

    Birds of the Indian Hills

  • “Among the Rocky Mountains, and especially on the western side of the range, there dwells another little hummer called the rufous humming-bird, because the prevailing color of his plumage is reddish, and between this family and the broad-tails there exists a bitter feud.”

    Birds of the Rockies

  • “There are words to represent these different grades of color, such as 'rufous' for reddish-brown and 'fuscous' for dusky-brown; these you must learn later on, for some of them are pretty hard ones.”

    Citizen Bird Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners

  • “The head and bib were a dark, rufous brown, the underside pale.”

    Simon & Schuster: Bird Cloud

  • “A rufous fly-catcher is hunting for his breakfast under the verandah roof because there are no insects out in the rain.”

    The Guardian: Australian floods: Why were we so surprised?

  • “A red kite was right in front of me in a gaunt old ash tree; it was a raptor of considerable size, with mottled brown and rufous plumage and a distinctive forked tail.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: East Yorkshire

  • “This cisticola has a black back thus its alternative common name with rufous wing panels and a grey tail with prominent sub-terminal spots and white tips on the retrices.”

    The Guardian: Mystery bird: Ethiopian cisticola, Cisticola lugubris

  • “A rufous hummingbird just flew up and investigated her red and pink hat hoping it was some kind of wonderful huge flower.”

    The Huffington Post: Jeanne Devon ("AKMuckraker"): A Beach Walk With the Ghosts of Exxon Valdez

  • “The Serranía del Darién is home to many endemic species such as the rufous-cheeked hummingbird Geothalsia bella and violet-capped hummingbird Goldmania violiceps and the frog Rhamphophyrne acrolopha.”

    Los Katíos National Park, Colombia

  • “Birds found here and in only few other places include white-bellied seedeaters Sporophila leucoptera, grassland yellow-finches Sicalis luteola, chalk-browed mockingbirds Mimus saturninus, tropical peewees Contopus cinereus, rufous-throated antbirds Gymnopithys rufigula, black-breasted puffbirds Notharchus pectoralis, and plain-bellied emeralds Amazilia leucogaster.”

    Marajó varzea

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Lists

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  • slumry tinged with red Jul 18, 2007

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‘rufous’ has been looked up 1750 times, added to 31 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 9.