Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various North American vultures, such as the turkey vulture.
  • noun Chiefly British A hawk of the genus Buteo, having broad wings and a broad tail.
  • noun An avaricious or otherwise unpleasant person.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In ornithology: Any hawk of the genus Buteo or subfamily Buteoninæ. (See these words.)
  • noun Some other hawk, not used in falconry, with a qualifying term to indicate the species: as, the moor-buzzard, Circus æruginosus, of Europe; the honey-buzzard, Pernis apivorus; the bald buzzard, the osprey, Pandion haliaëtus. An American vulture of the family Cathartidæ; the turkey-buzzard, Cathartes aura. See cut under Cathartes.
  • noun A blockhead; a dunce.
  • noun A coward.
  • noun A hawk that flies by night.
  • noun Compare buzzard-moth.
  • Senseless; stupid.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A bird of prey of the Hawk family, belonging to the genus Buteo and related genera.
  • noun (Zoöl.) In the United States, a term used for the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), and sometimes indiscriminately to any vulture.
  • noun the fishhawk or osprey. See Fishhawk.
  • noun A blockhead; a dunce.
  • adjective R. & Obs. Senseless; stupid.

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

  • noun Any of several Old-World birds of prey with broad wings and a broad tail.
  • noun In North America, a general term for scavenging birds such as the American black vulture, also called American black buzzard (Coragyps atratus), and the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura).
  • noun UK, colloquial a curmudgeonly or cantankerous old man.

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

  • noun a New World vulture that is common in South America and Central America and the southern United States
  • noun the common European short-winged hawk

Etymologies

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

[Middle English busard, hawk of the genus Buteo, from Old French, from Latin būteō.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French busart, possibly from Latin buteōn ("buteo").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word buzzard.

Examples

  • I'll take the turkey, and let you have the buzzard; or, _you can take the buzzard_, and I'll keep the turkey. '

    The Boy Hunters Mayne Reid 1850

  • I was ploughing one day, some long time after the mare died, with what we call a buzzard plough.

    Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now In England 1854

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

  • So this buzzard is boarding a plane, carrying a couple of dead possums, but the stewardess says,

    Page 2 2004

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • (n): a mean or cantakerous person

    August 15, 2008

  • "... to sit down to a banquet of roasted

    raven, a fricasseed hawk, or a broiled sea-gull; but it would be quite as good as the buzzard soup..."

    - Pliny Miles, Norðurfari; or, Rambles in Iceland

    May 16, 2009

  • Ah, Icelandic cuisine: a perennial topic on Wordie (and with good reason).

    May 16, 2009