Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having similarities to a bird.
  • adjective Applied to things relating to birds and bird behaviour.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bird +‎ -ish

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Examples

  • We find a bajillion birdish-dinosaurish-species, therefore it becomes unlikely that any one of them can be established as the ancestor to modern birds, therefore, saith the creationist, there are no transitional fossils.

    Chirality of life: Another false positive? - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • Off in the bushes to his right, a bird twittered in alarm, startled by some birdish fear.

    A Heritage of Stars Simak, Clifford D., 1904- 1977

  • About eleven o'clock I was returning from the kitchen garden, with my hands full of fruit and flowers, when, to my intense delight, poor little Richard came slowly out from under a laurel, and stood in the path before me, as veritable a type of a birdish prodigal son as could well be imagined.

    Wild Nature Won By Kindness Elizabeth Brightwen

  • At first he ventured in rather timidly, took a furtive glance and then flew away, but finding that crumbs were scattered for him, and while he picked them up a kindly voice encouraged his advances, he soon became at ease, made his way into the room and seemed to examine by turns, with birdish curiosity, all the pieces of furniture and the various ornaments on the mantelpiece and tables.

    Wild Nature Won By Kindness Elizabeth Brightwen

  • I could see quite plainly the attraction, the hesitation, the pros and cons, and then, finally, the resolve, and felt very curious as to how the birdish mind would carry out its intention.

    Wild Nature Won By Kindness Elizabeth Brightwen

  • "A kind of lizardish bird, or a birdish lizard, whichever you like," was the reply.

    Dick, Marjorie and Fidge A Search for the Wonderful Dodo

  • All restraint vanished; the conversation was gay, and spiced now and then with repartees which elicited Georgia's birdish laugh and banished for a time the weary, joyless expression of Beulah's countenance.

    Beulah 1872

  • Grand Hotel until it was time for me to join my grandmother, when, still almost at the far end of the paved ‘front’ along which they projected in a discordant spot of colour, I saw coming towards me five or six young girls, as different in appearance and manner from all the people whom one was accustomed to see at Balbec as could have been, landed there none knew whence, a flight of gulls which performed with measured steps upon the sands — the dawdlers using their wings to overtake the rest — a movement the purpose of which seems as obscure to the human bathers, whom they do not appear to see, as it is clearly determined in their own birdish minds.

    Within a Budding Grove 2003

  • With birdish distrust and caution Zöe only eyed it for some days, then perched on it; but finally she went in, and it was amusing to see her evident delight: how she went incessantly in and out, and turned round and round inside, and finally sat down and remained in it for an hour or more, quite still and happy, peering out at any one passing by, her sleek head and neck looking remarkably like a snake, and her furtive black eye observantly watching all that went on around her.

    Wild Nature Won By Kindness Elizabeth Brightwen

  • She considered me very attentively one day, with a roguish look in her black eyes, and then, going to her tree-stem larder, she pulled out a hidden mealworm and held it up for me to see, with an evident wish that I should know about it, and possibly with a little birdish triumph that she possessed such delights; and then it was put back again and well rammed into its crevice until the hungry moment should arrive.

    Wild Nature Won By Kindness Elizabeth Brightwen

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