Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having wiry or wireshafted tail-feathers, as the thread-tailed swallow, Uromitus filiferus. See cuts under thread-tailed, Trochilidæ, Videstrelda, and Vidua.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Having some or all of the tail quills terminated in a long, slender, pointed shaft, without a web or barbules.
Etymologies
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Examples
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They derive the name "wire-tailed" from the fact that the thin shafts of the outer pair of tail feathers are prolonged five inches beyond the others and look like wires.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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The nesting season of wire-tailed swallows is a long one.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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There is no doubt that some wire-tailed swallows bring up two broods.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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Many of the wire-tailed swallows, minivets and white-browed fantail flycatchers bring up a second brood during the rains.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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The wire-tailed swallows and minivets are busy with their second broods.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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The tailor-birds, the ashy and the Indian wren-warblers, the brahminy mynas, the wire-tailed swallows, the amadavats, the sirkeer cuckoos, the pea-fowl, the water-hens, the common and the pied mynas, the cuckoo-shrikes and the orioles are all fully occupied with nursery duties.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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Sparrows and doves are so employed, as are the wire-tailed swallows (_Hirundo smithii_).
A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916
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The deer were missed; but a couple of bush turkey were soon after secured, and followed by the successful stalk of a wire-tailed bird of
Fire Island Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track George Manville Fenn 1870
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Tonight, after the usual recounting of the day's small adventures "We caught two wire-tailed manakins in the nets today!"
NYT > Home Page By ANTHONY DI FIORE 2011
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