Definitions

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

  • noun A songbird (Dumetella carolinensis) of North and Central America having predominantly slate plumage and a cry like the mew of a cat.
  • noun Any of various other species of birds having a similar cry, especially one of several birds of Australia and New Guinea related to the bowerbirds.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wellknown oscine passerine bird of North America, Mimus caro-linensis, one of the mocking-thrushes, related to the mocking-bird.
  • noun An Australian name of members of the genus Ælurœdus: so called on account of the resemblance of their notes to the calls of a cat.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) An American bird (Galeoscoptes Carolinensis), allied to the mocking bird, and like it capable of imitating the notes of other birds, but less perfectly. Its note resembles at times the mewing of a cat.

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

  • noun Either of two species of American mockingbird relatives, the grey catbird and the black catbird.
  • noun Either of four species of Australasian bowerbirds of the genera Ailuroedus and Scenopooetes.
  • noun A babbler-like bird from eastern Africa, Parophasma galinieri.

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

  • noun any of various birds of the Australian region whose males build ornamented structures resembling bowers in order to attract females
  • noun North American songbird whose call resembles a cat's mewing

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From cat +‎ bird, because its cry is said to resemble that of a cat.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Ooh! Image search on this one is pretty nice as well. (See also grey catbird.)

    June 17, 2009