Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having white hair, fur, or plumage on the head.
- adjective Irish Favorite; darling.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having the head more or less entirely white: specifying many animals
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word white-headed.
Examples
-
Others, white-headed men too, had only learnt hardness and obstinacy from the days of the years of their lives, and sneered at the more gentle and yielding.
Mary Barton 2010
-
That's tough for the ruddy duck – an American import culled to 120 birds from 4,400 – but good news, perhaps, for the white-headed duck, otherwise facing extinction.
Invasive species: Killer shrimps and English parrots | Editorial 2011
-
Half a mile out, where the reef is, the white-headed combers thrust suddenly skyward out of the placid turquoise-blue and come rolling in to shore.
-
Then there drifted across the field of vision of his mind's eye the old man he had encountered at Glen Ellen, corning up the hillside through the fires of sunset, white-headed and white-bearded, eighty-four, in his hand the pail of foaming milk and in his face all the warm glow and content of the passing summer day.
Chapter XXII 2010
-
"It's now subject to an eradication programme before it wipes out the native white-headed duck."
-
He was a lean, tall, white-headed old Indian, with a beak on him like an eagle.
THE HUSSY 2010
-
Important breeding wetland species include marbled teal Marmaronetta angustirostris (VU,35), white-headed duck Oxyura leucocephala (EN,400, which nest mainly in artificial ponds in surrounding areas), white-eyed pochard Aythya niroca (VU), purple gallinule Porphyrio porphyrio and crested coot Fulica cristata.
-
For example, hybridization between Introduced mallards and the native Hawaiian duck and between the rarest European duck (the white-headed duck) and the invasive North American ruddy duck may result in the extinction of the native species.
Invasive species 2009
-
No, seriously: the sources that claim the language HAS changed — and permanently, at that — tend to insist that skipping the second space after a period or colon, as our dear old white-headed English teachers taught us to do, automatically stamps a manuscript old-fashioned, obsolete, and generally silly.
-
High records for common pochard and greylag goose Anser anser (3,200: 18,000 in the 1970s) show that Ichkeul is their most important wintering site in northwest Africa. 600 (4% of known world population) of the threatened white-headed duck Oxyura leucocephala, were seen in 1977.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.