popinjay
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- noun A vain, talkative person.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun A parrot.
- noun A woodpecker; especially, the green wood-pecker of Europe, Gecinus viridis.
- noun The figure of a parrot or other bird used as a mark for archery or firearms.
- noun In heraldry, a parrot used as a bearing: always, unless otherwise mentioned in the blazon, represented green, with red legs and beak.
- noun A coxcomb; a fop.
Examples
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_Item_, a pair of hose of popinjay green (they be well called popinjay) of thirty shillings.
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Leftists accused him of betrayal, it continued, and quoted one who had described him as a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay.
Christopher Hitchens: He died too young, with too much left to say | Nick Cohen
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A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
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Nothing had ever been fair and out in the open, from the moment he'd found the three Books in the Low Market, and hearing all his secret fears and unworthy hopes in the mouth of this manicured popinjay was the least fair thing of all.
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He is the considerer, the prudent, taking in sail, counting stock, husbanding his means, believing that a man has too many enemies than that he can afford to be his own foe; that we cannot give ourselves too many advantages in this unequal conflict, with powers so vast and unweariable ranged on one side, and this little conceited vulnerable popinjay that a man is, bobbing up and down into every danger, on the other.
Note
The word 'popinjay' comes ultimately from an Arabic word meaning 'parrot'.
