Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A fish-eating duck (Mergus merganser), the male of which has a glossy greenish-black head and a white body.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Same as
merganser .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A species of merganser (
M. merganser ) of Northern Europe and America; -- called alsomerganser ,dundiver ,sawbill ,sawneb ,shelduck , andsheldrake . Seemerganser .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
merganser ,Mergus merganser , of the northern hemisphere. They eat fish and are common on lakes and rivers.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun common merganser of Europe and North America
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Perhaps goose + -ander (possibly as in obsolete and dialectal bergander, sheldrake); probably akin to Old Norse önd and Old High German anut, duck.]
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Examples
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As she flew away a late goosander skimmed past, downriver-bound.
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A number of waterfowl species including goldeneye Bucephala clangula, goosander Mergus merganser, wigeon Anas penelope, teal Anas crecca and bean goose Anser fabalis breed in the area.
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Fish forms an inappreciable portion of their food, with the two notorious exceptions of the goosander and merganser, though anglers are much exercised over the damage, real or alleged, done by these birds to their favourite roach and dace in the
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Geese alone number several terms: brant, ember (goose), gosling, goosander, gull (not the sea bird, which is from Welsh), and solan.
reesetee commented on the word goosander
Obsolete name for the Common Merganser.
December 7, 2007
hernesheir commented on the word goosander
harle
May 20, 2011