bird

noun, often attributive \ ˈbərd \

|Updated on: 20 Jun 2018

Definition of bird

1 archaic : the young of a feathered vertebrate

2 : any of a class (Aves) of warm-blooded vertebrates distinguished by having the body more or less completely covered with feathers and the forelimbs modified as wings

3 : a game bird

4 : clay pigeon

5 a : fellow

b : a peculiar person

c chiefly British : girl

6 : shuttlecock

7 chiefly British

a : a hissing or jeering sound expressive of disapproval

b : dismissal from employment

8 : a thin piece of meat rolled up with stuffing and cooked

9 : a man-made object (such as an aircraft, rocket, or satellite) that resembles a bird especially by flying or being aloft

10 : an obscene gesture of contempt made by pointing the middle finger upward while keeping the other fingers down —usually used with the — called also finger

11 : birdie 2

—

birdlike

play \-ˌlīk\ adjective

— for the birds

: worthless, ridiculous

See bird defined for English-language learners

See bird defined for kids

Examples of bird in a Sentence

A large bird flew overhead.
The birds were singing outside our window.
He's a tough old bird.
We met some smashing birds at the pub last night.

Recent Examples of bird from the Web

There has been one special little bird there for the past couple of weeks, a willow flycatcher.

— taylor piephoff, charlotteobserver, "Willow flycatchers are maddingly difficult to identify in the field," 13 June 2018
Tiki the toucan is a free bird after escaping the Flamingo Gardens wildlife sanctuary.

— erika pesantes, Sun-Sentinel.com, "Tiki the toucan took off. Is she feasting on your mangoes?," 12 June 2018
Scientists turned a taxidermy bird into a robot on wheels, all for the sake of research.

— laura yan, Popular Mechanics, "Scientists Made a Taxidermy Bird Robot for Research," 9 June 2018
In Wyoming, BDAs are creating wet meadows for a vulnerable bird.

— ben goldfarb, Science | AAAS, "Beaver dams without beavers? Artificial logjams are a popular but controversial restoration tool," 7 June 2018
Now there are hundreds bees buzzing and a few birds living in the bush!

— michael mcgough, sacbee, "Her mural of Prince earned worldwide attention in April. Now, her remix is almost done," 3 June 2018
One iteration, a red bird reminiscent of the Twitter icon, was roundly lambasted.

— NBC News, "Inside the final days of Cambridge Analytica: failed rebrands, fleeing clients and Nerf basketball," 18 May 2018
There was a tie for overall honors, shared by Rodrigo Baca for a red bird head and Nina Mascardo for her blue peacock.

— elizabeth marie himchak, Rancho Bernardo, "Chalk artists share their talents, win prizes," 11 May 2018
One of the rarest is the Great Lakes piping plover, a small, migratory bird that builds its seasonal nests in the sands along Great Lakes shorelines.

— michigan wildlife council, Detroit Free Press, "No strangers to the endangered," 9 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bird.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.