Bird
proper nouncommon in dialogue
A surname.
proper noun
- 1
A surname.
- 2
Nickname of Charlie Parker (1920–1955), jazz saxophonist.
When Bird played like that, it was like hearing music for the first time. I'd never heard anybody play like that. Later Sonny Rollins and I would try to do things like that, and me and Trane, those short, hard bursts of musical phrases. But when Bird played like that, he was outrageous…
Etymology
* As an English and Scottish surname, from the noun bird. * As an Irish surname, Anglicized/translated from several names erroneously thought to contain the element éan (“bird”) such as Ó hÉinigh (see Heagney), Ó hÉanna (see Heaney), Ó hÉanacháin (see Heneghan) and Mac an Déaghanaigh (see McEneaney). * Similarly translated from several other languages containing the word bird, such as German Vogel, French Loiseau, Czech Ptáček see Ptacek), Pták, Polish Ptak. * This also extends to Native American names, such as Lakota ziŋtkala (“bird”). Compare Eagle, Hawk; Blackbird, Kingbird, Redbird, etc.