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swiftlet in British English
(ˈswɪftlɪt)
noun
any of various small swifts of the Asian genus Collocalia that often live in caves and use echolocation: the nests, which are made of hardened saliva, are used in oriental cookery to make birds' nest soup
swiftlet in American English
(ˈswɪftlɪt)
noun
any of several swifts of the genus Collocalia, of southeastern Asia, the East Indies, and Australia, certain species of which use saliva to construct nests, which are used in making bird's-nest soup
Word origin
[1890–95; swift + -let]This word is first recorded in the period 1890–95. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: bootstrap, honky-tonk, neoclassicism, phoneme, takedown-let is a diminutive suffix attached to nouns (booklet; piglet; ringlet), and, by extraction from bracelet, a suffix denoting a band, piece of jewelry, or article of clothing worn on the partof the body specified by the noun (anklet; wristlet)Image ofswiftlet
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