Skip to content
OneKitly

bird

nounverbadjectivenounverbcommon in dialogue

  • Australia//ˈbɜːd//
  • Australia/[ˈbɜ̝ːd]/
  • Australia//ˈbɘːd//
  • Australia/[ˈbɘːd]/
  • New Zealand//ˈbøːd//

An animal of the clade (traditionally class) Aves in the phylum Chordata, characterized by being warm-blooded, having feathers and wings usually capable of flight, having a beaked mouth, and laying eggs.

noun

  1. 1

    An animal of the clade (traditionally class) Aves in the phylum Chordata, characterized by being warm-blooded, having feathers and wings usually capable of flight, having a beaked mouth, and laying eggs.

    Ducks and sparrows are birds.

    The level below this is called the Phylum; birds belong to the Phylum Chordata, which includes all the vertebrate animals (the sub-phylum Vertebrata) and a few odds and ends.

  2. 2

    obsoleteAny winged animal.

  3. 3

    obsoleteA young bird, a nestling.

    […] the foxes have holes, and the brydds of the aier have nestes, but [t]he sonne of the man hath not where onto leye his heede: […]

    That ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird.

  4. 4

    slangA man, fellow.

    He once took in his own mother, and was robbed by a 'pal,' who thought he was a doctor. Oh, he's a rare bird is 'Gentleman Joe'!

    "What I mean - I expect that old, red-headed bird at the office sent you round with no other purpose."

    The door opened and a tall hungry-looking bird with a cane and a big nose came in neatly, shut the door behind him against the pressure of the door closer, marched over to the desk and placed a wrapped parcel on the desk.

    "But you think he's right?" "Could be. They're rum birds, all right."

  5. 5

    A girl or woman, especially one considered sexually attractive.

    And by my word! the bonny bird / In danger shall not tarry.

    After tea, the bright boys wash, clean their boots, and change into their “second-best” attire, and stroll forth[…]; sometimes to saunter, in company with others, up and down that parade until they “click” with one of the “birds.”

    Are you calling me “darlin’”? / Are you calling me “bird”?

    The usual visual grammar was in place – a carpet in the street, people in paddocks awaiting a brush with something glamorous, blokes with earpieces, birds in frocks of colliding colours that if sighted in nature would indicate the presence of poison.

  6. 6

    A girl or woman, especially one considered sexually attractive. A girlfriend.

    Mike went out with his bird last night.

    But all of a sudden though, just through the smoke / It's your bird laughing and joking with a bloke / Ain't just that either, as she moves closer / In a shape what looks like they're lovers, he's tonguing her!

  7. 7

    slangAn aircraft.

    “Cabin cleaners? They have worked on this bird. Don't you know you've always got to clean up after the cleaners? What they don't teach you in school these days.”

    Any of our birds squawking?

  8. 8

    slangA satellite.

    Deployment of the fourth bird "should ensure that Inmarsat has sufficient capacity in orbit in the early 1990s, taking into account the possibility of launch failures and the age of some of the spacecraft in the Inmarsat first generation system

    Will a government- backed APSTAR satellite knock out a planned AsiaSat II bird?

    In reality, the Air Force was never able to place a bird in orbit that quickly.

  9. 9

    Booing and jeering, especially as done by an audience expressing displeasure at a performer.

    to give the bird

  10. 10

    The vulgar hand gesture in which the middle finger is extended.

    to flip the bird

    2002, The Advocate, "Flying fickle finger of faith", page 55. For whatever reason — and there are so many to chose from — they flipped the bird in the direction of the tinted windows of the Bushmobile.

    Then she raised both hands above her shoulders and flipped him the bird with each one.

  11. 11

    A yardbird.

  12. 12

    slangA kilogram of cocaine.

    Never dirt on my knees I'm just serving these fiends Sell birds to the bees I sell birds to the trees

  13. 13

    slangA penis.

    BUBBLES: One time I was making a model and I glued the wing to a B17 bomber to my bird by accident.

  14. 14

    informalSnowbird (retiree who moves to a warmer climate).

Etymology

Etymology tree Old English bridd Middle English brid English bird From Middle English bird, brid, from Old English bridd (“chick, fledgling, chicken”), of uncertain origin (see Old English bridd for more). Originally from a term used of birds that could not fly (chicks, fledglings, chickens) as opposed to the general Old English term for flying birds, fugol (modern fowl). Gradually replaced fowl as the most common term starting in the 14th century. The "booing/jeering" and "vulgar hand gesture" senses derived from the expression “to give the big bird”, as in “to hiss someone like a goose”, dated in the mid‐18th century.

verb

  1. 1

    To observe or identify wild birds in their natural environment.

  2. 2

    To catch or shoot birds; to hunt birds.

  3. 3

    figurativeTo seek for game or plunder; to thieve.

    MAMMON: These day-owls. SURLY: That are birding in men's purses

  4. 4

    To transmit via satellite.

    Unless the TV crew has its own flyaway, the locals can still defeat a story they couldn't prevent reporters from covering by cutting it off at the pass, when it is being birded through their facilities.

    After being sent by fast car to Tel Aviv the cassettes would be 'birded' by satellite to the USA and London.

adjective

  1. 1

    Able to be passed with very little work; having the nature of a bird course.

    SOC100 isn’t bird at all lol. But ANT101 is super easy & the prof (Dr. Sherry Fukuzawa) is amazing.

noun

  1. 1

    slangA prison sentence.

    He’s doing bird.

    Well, I’ll do my bird - I can ‘andle it, bird’s never been no trouble for me - and then I’ll get you.

Etymology

Originally Cockney rhyming slang, shortened from bird-lime for "time".

verb

  1. 1

    slangTo bring into prison, to roof.

    Free Criminal, he got birded That's a L but I know he’ll firm it I was vexed when I heard that verdict

Forms

plural
birds
comparative
birdier
superlative
birdiest
past tense
birded
past participle
birded
present participle
birding
third person singular
birds
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).