Definitions

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

  • noun Either of two small corvids (Corvus monedula or C. dauricus) of Eurasia and North Africa, having black and gray or black and white plumage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The common daw of Europe, Corvus monedula, an oscine passerine bird of the family Corvidæ.
  • noun The boat-tailed grackle, Quiscalus major, a large long-tailed blackbird of the family Agelæidæ. Coues.

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

  • noun (Zoöl.) See daw, n.

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

  • noun A European bird of the crow family (Corvus monedula), often nesting in church towers and ruins.
  • noun A Daurian jackdaw, a closely related Asian bird (Corvus dauuricus).

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

  • noun common black-and-grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compound of jack and daw The first element, also present in Low German Kajak, (North Saxon) Jöker "jackdaw", may refer either to its characteristic call, often represented as tchak-tchak, or to the name Jack. The second element means "jackdaw" in itself, from Old English dāƿe, and is cognate with German Dohle.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 15

    February 5, 2007

  • Features in the shortest possible sentence that includes every letter of the alphabet: "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz." Unless someone out there knows a shorter one.

    November 9, 2012