Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various colorful tropical or subtropical birds of the family Trogonidae, which includes the quetzal.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A genus of birds, type of family Trogonidæ, formerly conterminous with the same, subsequently variously restricted.
- n. [lowercase] Any bird of the genus Trogon in a broad sense, as a curucui or quetzal. The most brilliant and splendid of these birds, and one of the most gorgeous of all the feathered tribes, is the famous quetzal, or sacred bird, of the ancient inhabitants of Central America, variously known as the long-tailed, paradise-, or peacock-trogon, Trogon paradiseus, T. pavoninus, Calurus resplendens, Pharomacrus mocinno, and by other names. The body is about as large as a pigeon's, but the long upper tail-coverts project beyond the tail for two feet or more, forming a graceful spray-like train. The bird is rich golden-green above, and mostly bright-crimson below.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of several species of bird, most of which live in Central and South America, have colorful feathers, and nest in holes in trees.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of beautiful tropical birds belonging to the family
Trogonidæ . They are noted for the brilliant colors and the resplendent luster of their plumage.
WordNet 3.0
- n. forest bird of warm regions of the New World having brilliant lustrous plumage and long tails
Etymologies
- Greek trōgōn, present participle of trōgein, to gnaw; see terə-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A trogon was the next, a thickly-feathered soft-looking bird, yoke-toed like a cuckoo, and bearing great resemblance in shape to the nightjar of the English woods, but wonderfully different in plumage; for, whereas the latter is of a soft blending of greys and browns, like the wings of some woodland moths, this trogon's back was of a cinnamon brown, and its breast of a light rosy-scarlet blending off into white crossed with fine dark-pencilled stripes.”
“A trogon, its cherry red neck gleaming against a body of emerald green, crawls up the side of a picture frame, followed by a chattering monkey.”
“Other species with an Afromontane distribution include bar-tailed trogon (Apaloderma vittatum), scarce swift (Schoutedenapus myioptilus), orange thrush (Zoothera gurneyi) and African black swift (Apus barbatus sladeniae).”
“Birders plan their vacations around the northern extent of the trogon (Chiricauhuas) or where to see 47 varieties of hummingbirds (Ramsey Canyon).”
“The bird fauna here is very rich, 707 species, and includes species such as Ward's trogon (Harpactes wardi) (table 2).”
“My favorites were the toco toucan, motmot, currasows, Yucatan jay, cinnamon-colored cuckoo, and pileated woodpecker and violaceous trogon (a relative of the resplendent quetzal).”
“Once more, we wound up in a junglelike forest, where the only thing we saw of note was a gorgeous trogon with a luminous green body and a red throat, a bird so rare that it was the first one Stanton had ever seen, though he'd lived all his life in Africa.”
Shadows in the Bush, Part II: Phil Caputo Hunts African Cape Buffalo in Tanzania
“The thick-forested mountains delivered the call of the trogon, but no sighting.”
“The beautiful trogon, with bright scarlet breast and black back, uttered a most peculiar note, similar to that we read of as having once been emitted by Memnon, and likened to the tuning of a lyre.”
“On the very first day, my hunters obtained for me the elegant yellow and green trogon”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘trogon’.
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birds
birds with singular names from
at least 9 English dictionariesaasvogel, aberdevine, accentor, accipiter, aepyornis, agami, albatross, alcatras, alcid, alcidine, amadavat, amokura and 1056 more...
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More Bird Wirds: North America
Birds endemic to the United States and/or North America.
toucan, peacock, weaver, bullfinch, redpoll, siskin, crossbill, finch, rosy-finch, oriole, cowbird, blackbird and 213 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Still More Bird Wirds
A work in progress....Birds from around the world (other than endemic to North America).
barbet, hornbill, trogon, bee-eater, bristlehead, wren-babbler, stubtail, blackeye, bush warbler, cassowary, bowerbird, bird-of-paradise and 722 more...
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
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all the angles
and sides
rangle, fangle, fingle-fangle, bangle, dangle, gangle, jangle, mangle, tangle, wangle, wrangle, brangle and 82 more...
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qreen-tailed
in the Century Dictionary definition of 'menhaden' there is a misprint - I speculate- o 'qreen-tailed'for green-tailed. BUT there are alot of odd-tails out there..............
uropygium, hypural, nudicaudate, plesiosaur, macrural, curvicaudate, homocercal, jabiru, xeme, sirenian, dugong, saururaceae and 56 more...
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trogein
Greek - to gnaw
trout, begnaw, grate, trogon, royne, knaw, corrade, champ, knab, fret, chew, hyperactual and 1 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for trogon.
reesetee Isn't it? The full name of one of these is Elegant Trogon, which I think is a very fine name to have.
It's on two of my lists because the species occurs in North America as well as elsewhere in the world. :-) May 12, 2008
yarb Is this the best bird name ever? Sounds like a supervillain, a nemesis, a destroyer of worlds!
n.b. so good reesetee listed it twice! May 10, 2008