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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of various large wading birds of the family Ciconiidae, chiefly of the Eastern Hemisphere, having long legs and a long straight bill.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A large altricial grallatorial bird, of the family Ciconiidæ and especially of the subfamily Ciconiinæ (which see for technical characters). The stork is related to the herons, spoonbills, and ibises, but not very closely to the cranes. There are several species, found in nearly all temperate and tropical regions. They are tall and stately birds, equaling the cranes and larger herons in stature, but are readily distinguished by many technical characters. Storks are wading birds, frequenting the vicinity of water; but some of them become semi-domesticated, and often nest on buildings. Their fidelity and amiability are traditional. They feed chiefly on reptiles (as snakes and lizards), amphibians (as frogs), fishes, mollusks, and worms, but also sometimes capture small quadrupeds and birds. The best-known species is the common white stork of Europe, Ciconiaalba; when adult, it is pure-white with black-tipped wings and reddish bill and feet; it is about 3½ feet long, and stands 4 feet high. The black stork of the same country is C. nigra, a rarer species. Various birds of different countries, technically storks, are known by other names, as adjutant, marabou, maguari, jabiru, shell-ibis, and wood-ibis. See these words, and cuts under adjutant-bird, Ciconiidæ, Grallæ, jabiru, openbill, Pelargomorphæ, simbil, and Tantalus.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A large wading bird with long legs and a long beak of the family Ciconiidae.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of large wading birds of the family Ciconidæ, having long legs and a long, pointed bill. They are found both in the Old World and in America, and belong to Ciconia and several allied genera. The European white stork (Ciconia alba) is the best known. It commonly makes its nests on the top of a building, a chimney, a church spire, or a pillar. The black stork (C. nigra) is native of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. large mostly Old World wading birds typically having white-and-black plumage

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English stork, from Old English storc, from Proto-Germanic *sturkaz, from Proto-Indo-European *str̥gos, probably an extension of *ster- (“stiff”) (from its movements). Near cognates include German Storch and Icelandic storkur, Albanian shturë ("starling"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, from Old English storc. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “In Denmark, however, the stork is not a welcome guest and so this would be considered appropriate alternative housing.”

    Boing Boing

  • “Sue Dickenson's comment about the stork is priceless.”

    Dumbest quote

  • “There's food in the bucket, because he loves food so much, and … he keeps his food in the basement, and he's coming up to answer the door because the stork is knocking at it and beseeching him to be a hero.”

    Sound Off: Kung Fu Panda - What Did You Think? « FirstShowing.net

  • “The stork is particularly mentioned; the fir-trees, which are very high, are her house, her castle.”

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)

  • “Great pics the pic of the coon's uh um calling the stork, was hilarious.”

    Reader Shots: New Photos of the Week

  • “Garret knew Ross would be coming through the door shortly, so he apologized for such a brief meeting and promised to call the stork early next week.”

    Simon & Schuster: Act of Treason

  • “The stork was a Baptist who attended church every Sunday, which in a state like Indiana was very important.”

    Simon & Schuster: Act of Treason

  • “FISCHER: The days of telling children that babies come by a stork is a long time gone, at least in the communities I ` m from.”

    CNN Transcript Sep 27, 2006

  • “The stork is a bird of prey; it is vigilant, greedy, and catches gudgeons.”

    The Room in the Dragon Volant

  • “The list of non-kosher birds in Vayikra 11: 13 and Deuteronomy 14: 12 includes "chasida", usually identified as stork (According to some authorities, however, the chasida is not the stork, because the stork is a kosher bird (Rabbenu Yerocham,”

    avakesh

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘stork’.

Comments

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  • bilby "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
    - Mae West. Oct 4, 2008

  • treeseed In Western culture the White Stork is a symbol of childbirth. In Victorian times the details of human reproduction were difficult to approach, especially in reply to a younger child's query of "Where did I come from?"; "The stork brought you to us" was the tactic used to avoid discussion of sex. This habit was derived from the once popular superstition that storks were the harbingers of happiness and prosperity, and possibly from the habit of some storks of nesting atop chimneys, down which the new baby could be imagined as entering the house.

    The image of a stork bearing an infant wrapped in a sling held in its beak is common in popular culture. The small pink or reddish patches often found on a newborn child's eyelids, between the eyes, on the upper lip, and on the nape of the neck are sometimes still called "stork bites". In reality they are clusters of developing veins that soon fade.

    _Wikipedia Feb 10, 2008

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‘stork’ has been looked up 1831 times, loved by 1 person, added to 15 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.