Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various passerine, chiefly tropical Old World songbirds of the family Pycnonotidae, most of which have grayish or brownish plumage.
  • noun A songbird often mentioned in Persian poetry and thought to be a nightingale.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name given to the yak.
  • noun The Persian name of the nightingale, or a species of nightingale, rendered familiar in English poetry by Moore, Byron, and others.
  • noun Specifically In ornithology, a bird of the family Pycnonotidæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The Persian nightingale (Pycnonotus jocosus). The name is also applied to several other Asiatic singing birds, of the family Timaliidæ. The green bulbuls belong to the Chloropsis and allied genera.

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

  • noun Any of several passerine songbirds, of the family Pycnonotidae, native to Africa and parts of Asia, sometimes known as the ‘nightingale of the East’.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun nightingale spoken of in Persian poetry

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Persian, from Arabic.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Persian بلبل, from Arabic بلبل.

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Examples

  • Sultan's temper was sometimes fiery, said foreign officials of the 1960s, but his habit of working long into the night earned him the nickname "bulbul" or "nightingale".

    Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Angus McDowall 2011

  • The "bulbul" is a "species of the sub-family pycnonoti of the Thrush family, admired in the East for their song as the nightingale is in Europe."

    Notes 2002

  • They pass as far South as Shiraz, where they meet the plump little Indian bulbul, which is often mistaken for the Shiraz poets 'singing-bird.

    Persia Revisited Thomas Edward Gordon 1873

  • The hen has the appearance of a kind of bulbul, being chestnut-hued with a white breast and a metallic blue-black crest.

    A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916

  • April 24th, 2008 11: 18 am ET mr. obama victories are due to his being honest and not talking down to the voters. get honest cnn big symbolic victory. hillary was ahead at one time by 20 plus points and she only won by 9.2 points bulbul

    Clinton faces uphill battle in North Carolina 2008

  • Other birds include: the endemic Seychelles bulbul Hypsipetes crassirostris, blue pigeon Alectroenas pulcherrima, Seychelles sunbird Nectarinia dussamieri, Seychelles kestrel Falco araea and an endemic cave-nesting swiftlet Collocalia francica elaphra.

    Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve, Seychelles 2008

  • Species include black-naped fruit pigeon Ptilinopus melanospila, large brown cuckoo dove Macropygia phasianella, emerald dove Chalcophaps indica, collared kingfisher Halcyon chloris and yellow-vented bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier.

    Ujung Kulon National Park and Krakatau Nature Reserve, Indonesia 2009

  • However, there are no babblers, only two sylvine warblers, and just one bulbul species.

    Nicobar Islands rain forests 2008

  • Indonesia's massive cage bird trade has also placed a number of species such as Bali Starling and Straw-headed bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus, VU) under serious threat; the latter species, once common across its range, is now confined largely to remote areas.

    Biological diversity in Sundaland 2008

  • Family Common Name Species Timaliidae Rufous babbler Turdoides subrufus Pycnonotidae Yellow-throated bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus An asterisk signifies that the species 'range is limited to this ecoregion.

    South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests 2008

Comments

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  • 'What would you say a bulbul is?'

    ...

    'Not one of those ladies who take money?' I said.

    'No.'

    'Not the brass knobs on a German steam organ?'

    'Not the knobs.'

    'Nothing to do with the independence of America or suchlike?'

    'No.'

    'A mechanical engine for winding clocks?'

    'No.'

    'A tumour, or the lather in a cow's mouth, or those elastic articles that ladies wear?'

    'Not them by a long chalk.'

    'Not an eastern musical instrument played by Arabs?'

    He clapped his hands.

    'Not that but very near it,' he smiled, 'something next door to it. You are a cordial intelligible man. A bulbul is a Persian nightingale. What do you think of that now?'

    'It is seldom I am far out,' I said dryly.

    Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

    December 6, 2008

  • Choice quote for bulbul, wolfnotes. Another reduplicative word for a (fictional) avian is "the jubjub bird" in L. Carroll's poem Jabberwocky.

    January 7, 2009

  • See also philomelian.

    February 9, 2009

  • THE BULBUL

    The bulbul hummeth like a book

    Upon the pooh-pooh tree,

    And now and then he takes a look

    At you and me,

    At me and you.

    Kuchi!

    Kuchoo!

    Owen Seaman.

    February 9, 2009

  • I saw a yellow bulbul in Singapore.

    January 18, 2016