| 释义 |
ground-bird
†1. Applied to a particular swan out of a ‘game’, or perh. more than one, possibly as being the due of the owner of the land. Obs.
1560in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 285 For uppyng the ground byrde in portemeade. 1562Ibid. 304 Item, payed for a grounde byrd..xijd. 1570Ibid. 330 Payed for two growne burds. 1887Standard 1 Aug. 5/2 The owner of the soil claimed one cygnet as ‘the ground bird’.
2. A general name for any columbine, gallinaceous, grallatorial, or struthious bird.
1840Blyth Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. (1849) 251 The various groups of Ground-birds (as the vast majority of the foregoing extensive series may be appropriately denominated) fall into six principal divisions.
3. U.S. The grass-finch or ground-sparrow.
1856Bryant Poems, Rivulet iii, And the brown ground⁓bird, in thy glen Still chirps as merrily as then. |