Definitions

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

  • noun A migratory shorebird (Tringa nebularia) that breeds in northern Eurasia and has greenish legs and a long bill.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The popular name of Totanus glottis, a common sandpiper

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) A European sandpiper or snipe (Totanus canescens); -- called also greater plover.

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

  • noun A wading bird, Tringa nebularia, that has long greenish legs and is native to Eurasia.

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

  • noun large European sandpiper with greenish legs

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Other uncommon species are golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos, redlegged kittiwake Rissa brevirostris (VU), and spotted greenshank Tringa guttifer (EN).

    Volcanoes of Kamchatka, Russian Federation 2008

  • Wild fowl in great variety visit the island, and the low-lying land within the sea-wall is the favourite haunt of many sea-birds; and several varieties of plover, the redshank, greenshank, sandpiper, and snipe may be found there.

    Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch Sidney Heath 1907

  • Two globally endangered species -- spoon-billed sandpiper and Nordmann's greenshank -- were also spotted in Sonadia.

    The Daily Star 2009

  • (_Linota flavirostris_), hen harrier (_Circus cyaneus_), buzzard (_Buteo vulgaris_), redshank (_Totanus calidris_), greenshank (_Totanus cunescens_) and the little auk (_Mergulus alle_).

    Hertfordshire Herbert Winckworth Tompkins 1901

Comments

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  • "...and everywhere those fluting marsh- and shore-bird cries, often the same as those they had both heard in their boyhood and uttered by birds if not of quite the very species than wonderfully like—greenshanks, stilts, avocets, plovers of every kind."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 348

    March 9, 2008