hardbilladj.n.
/ˈhɑːdbɪl/, U.S. /ˈhɑrdˌbɪl/ Ornithology.
A. adj.
= hard-billed adj.
ΚΠ
1780 E. Macfait New Syst. Gen. Geogr. 353 Several small hard-bill birds seen this month. Snow buntings arrive, and are numerous.
1833 Field Naturalist Feb. 90 Are you aware that many hard bill birds use the throat or swallow as a pouch, or reservoir for food?
1926 Scotsman 11 Dec. 14/6 A beautiful specimen of the powerfully-billed hawfinch..won the trophy for the best hard-bill bird in the show.
2007 R. Guého Rhythms of Kimberley 63 The seed-eating hardbill birds, including the various finches, are well catered for by this seasonal cycle of grass growth.
B. n.
Originally: †a grosbeak or similar finch (obsolete). In later use: (esp. in aviculture) any bird, esp. a finch or similar songbird, that has a bill adapted for feeding on hard foods such as seeds and grain. Contrasted with softbill n.
ΚΠ
1792 J. Leslie tr. Comte de Buffon Nat. Hist. Birds III. 412 The Canada bird, delineated..under the name of Canada Grosbeak, and which we have called Hard bill [Fr. Dur-bec], because its bill is comparatively harder, shorter, and stronger, than in the others.
1837 Mag. Nat. Hist. 1 327 The haw-finches of temperate climates (Coccothraustes) and the hard-bills of South America, Coccoborus.
1872 J. H. Stirling As Regards Protoplasm (new ed.) i. 50 The reader may be safely left to think for himself of ruminantia and carnivora, of soft bills and hard bills, of molluscs and men.
1958 A. D. Cruickshank & H. G. Cruickshank 1001 Questions Answered About Birds 274 Zoo keepers frequently divide birds into two groups according to their food habits: soft-bills..and hard-bills or seed eating birds (sparrows, finches, etc.).
2003 Bird Keeper June 11 Joe's father also bought a cage for his son and a packet of bird seed. ‘That's all I needed to keep a hardbill like a linnet’.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
adj.n.1780