wren

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various small brownish songbirds of the family Troglodytidae, having rounded wings, a slender bill, and a short, often erect tail.
2. n. Any of various similar unrelated songbirds.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A very small migratory and insectivorous singing-bird of Great Britain and other European countries, with a slender bill and extremely short tail, and of dark reddish-brown coloration varied with black, inhabiting shrubbery, and belonging to the family Troglodytidæ; hence, any member of this family, and, with a qualifying term, one of various other small birds of different families, as certain warblers, kinglets, etc. See the phrases below. Wren originally specified the bird technically known as Sylvia troglodytes, Troglodytes parvulus, T. vulgaris, T. europæus, Anorthura troglodytes, A. communis, etc., the only member of its genus and family found in Europe. It is only about four inches long, very active and sprightly, with a pleasing song at times, and a characteristic habit of carrying the short tail cocked up. This little bird figures extensively in English folklore, and has a host of local, provincial, or familiar names with wren expressed or implied, as bobby, cutty, kitty, jenny, sally, scutty, tiddy, tidley, titty, also our Lady of Heaven's hen, etc. This wren is a northerly type, and one of several species of the restricted genus Troglodytes (or Anorthura), as T. fumigatus of Japan, T. alascensis of Alaska, and the well-known winter wren of North America, T. hiemalis, which is so near the English wren as to be by some naturalists regarded as only a variety. (See cut under Troglodytes.) In the United States the commonest wren, and the one which plays there the part taken by the English wren in Europe, is the house-wren, T. aédon or T. domesticus, which abounds in most parts of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, runs into several geographical races, and is represented in Mexico and warmer parts of America by several other varieties or congeneric species. The common house-wren in settled districts attaches itself closely to man, and nests by preference in nooks and crannies of outhouses, though it is more retired and wood-loving in other regions. It trills a hearty and voluble song, and lays numerous (from 6 to 10) pinkishwhite eggs very heavily spotted with brown, in the large mass of rubbish which it carries into its hole for a nest. This wren is migratory, and in many parts of the United States its presence is complementary to that of the winter wren. Certain wrens of North America, of the genus Cistothorus (and its section Telmatodytes), inhabit marshes and low wet shrubbery, and are known as marsh-wrens. (See the generic names, marsh-wren, and tule-wren.) Various others, chiefly of southern regions of the United States, and thence southward, as the great Carolina and Bewick's, are of the genus Thryothorus (which see, with cut). Others are the rock-wrens, cañon-wrens, and cactus-wrens, of the genera Salpinctes, Catherpes, and Campylorhynchus. (See the compound and technical names, with cuts.) All these belong to essentially Neotropical types, which have but few outlying forms in the United States, though richly represented by very numerous species of various genera in the warmer parts of America (as those above named, Thryophilus, Uropsila, Henicorhina, Cyphorhinus, and Microcerculus). The wrens above noted are all properly so called (Troglodytidæ): with the exceptions named, they are all American. The qualified application of wren to various small birds of both hemispheres, including some of other families than Troglodytidæ, is given in the phrases following.
2. n. The goldcrest or kinglet, Regulus cristatus. See cut under goldcrest.
3. n. Uropsila leucogastra, of Oaxaca and Tamaulipas in Mexico, originally described by J. Gould in 1836 as Troglodytes leucogastra, a name subsequently misused to denote the white-bellied wren .
4. n. (See also cactus-wren, cañon-wren, marsh-wren, reed-wren, tule-wren, willow-wren, wood-wren.)

Wiktionary

1. n. Members of a mainly New World passerine bird family Troglodytidae.
2. n. Small bird of similar appearance to a true wren.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any one of numerous species of small singing birds belonging to Troglodytes and numerous allied of the family Troglodytidæ.
2. n. Any one of numerous species of small singing birds more or less resembling the true wrens in size and habits.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. English architect who designed more than fifty London churches (1632-1723)
2. n. any of several small active brown birds of the northern hemisphere with short upright tails; they feed on insects