Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small Old World thrush (Saxicola torquata) of open, grassy regions, the male of which has a black head, dark wings and tail, and chestnut underparts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of several different Old World chats, belonging to the genera Saxicola and (especially) Pratincola; a kind of bushchat: applied to three different English birds, and extended, as a book-name, to several others of the above genera. Improperly, the wheatear, Saxicola ænanthe, and some other species of the restricted genus Saxicola. See cut under
wheatear .[In this sense chiefly Scotch and American, the wheatear being the only bird of the kind which straggles to America.]
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small, active, and very common European singing bird (Pratincola rubicola); -- called also
chickstone ,stonechacker ,stonechatter ,stoneclink ,stonesmith . - n. The wheatear.
- n. The blue titmouse.
WordNet 3.0
- n. common European chat with black plumage and a reddish-brown breast
Etymologies
- From the resemblance of its call to the sound of falling pebbles.
Examples
“I just learned that the stonechat is a bird, but this yarn speaks to me of bricks.”
“The first shows a male who returns to give the cameraman a quick encore; the second shows a stonechat not eating a centipede.”
“Actually we heard two cuckoos, a stonechat and curlews, saw a heron, skylarks and countless warblers and the sun shone for most of the run without getting too hot.”
“The bird species confined to Réunion are the Réunion cuckoo-shrike (Coracina newtoni, EN), Réunion stonechat (Saxicola tectes), Réunion olive white-eye (Zosterops olivaceus), and Réunion bulbul (Hypsipetes borbonicus).”
“He makes a fist and hammers it against his skull to bring forth robin redbreast, stonechat, crow, while the rest of us raise our hands with what we think are the right answers and hold our breaths trying hard not to laugh.”
“At the time when folk go hunting with the sparrow-hawk and with the hound, which seeks the lark and the stonechat and tracks the quail and the partridge, it happened that a knight of Thrace, a young and sprightly noble, esteemed for his prowess, had one day gone a-hawking quite close beside this tower; Bertrand was the knight's name.”
“Bulbul, _hazari dastar_, the famous songster, is not a real _bulbul_, but either Alaudina or a stonechat.”
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries
“Edolius occurs here, another stonechat has come in.”
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries
“But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on it.”
“A stonechat he was sure it must be, and he wandered on till he came to a great silver fir, and thought that he spied a pigeon's nest among the multitudinous branches.”
Lists
‘stonechat’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
hernesheir Also stone-chatter, clocharet, chackart, chackie. It is believed in the north of Scotland that the toad covers the eggs of this bird during its absence from the nest. Some, indeed assert that the toad hatches the young stone-chatter. May 10, 2011
reesetee Yes, yes. Now I understand. Dec 20, 2007
asativum Some conversations can certain get you down. Dec 20, 2007
reesetee I didn't know conversations had feathers. Dec 20, 2007
bilby Haha :-) You can't get chat from a stone. Dec 20, 2007
asativum I'd have thought it was a very one-sided conversation. Dec 20, 2007