Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Any of several Old World birds of the genus Vanellus related to the plovers, especially V. vanellus, having a narrow crest and erratic flight behavior. Also called green plover, pewit.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Any of several medium-sized wading birds belonging to the subfamily Vanellinae of the family Charadriidae.
- n. A silly man.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A small European bird of the Plover family (Vanellus cristatus, or Vanellus vanellus). It has long and broad wings, and is noted for its rapid, irregular fight, upwards, downwards, and in circles. Its back is coppery or greenish bronze. Its eggs are the “plover's eggs” of the London market, esteemed a delicacy. It is called also peewit, dastard plover, and wype. The gray lapwing is the Squatarola cinerea.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A plover-like bird with four toes, a crest, and lustrous plumage, belonging to the genus Vanellus and family Charadriidæ.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. large crested Old World plover having wattles and spurs
Etymologies
Examples
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The lapwing is a kind of plover, and is very swift of foot.
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Kibitz The flycatcher (also called lapwing, pewit, and other names) is an insectivorous bird with an irritating cry.
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a big kind of lapwing and snipe; but the snipe here were cunning, and got up wild and flew far, so I only got a small bag.
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(March-Cock) from its returning in that month, and our old writers "lapwing" (Deut. xiv.
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This species, which is endemic to marshes and moorlands located in the Ethiopian highlands, is very much like the northern lapwing, V. vanellus, found in Europe: it is a relatively tame, noisy bird with a swerving flight that feeds on the ground, making short runs and sudden stops.
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The spot-breasted lapwing is distinguished from its close relatives by the fleshy wattles in front of its eyes and by its black-spotted breast.
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Spot-breasted plover, Vanellus melanocephalus (formerly, Tylibyx melanocephalus and Hoplopterus melanocephalus; protonym, Lobivanellus melanocephalus), also known as the spot-breasted lapwing, photographed at Bale Mountains (also known as the Urgoma Mountains), Ethiopia (Africa).
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The lapwing soaring blunt-winged over a plowed field and calling out his sharp whistle means nothing to me, for everything means nothing to me.
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This coincides with the recent northern expansion of other wet-grassland waders, such as the common snipe (Gallinago gallinago) in the Bolshemelzkaya tundra [14], the black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa), and the northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) in northern Russia concomitant with a northward expansion of agriculture including sown meadows [15].
Recent and projected changes in arctic species distributions and potential ranges
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The Gudo plains, west of Addis Ababa, is a particularly important conservation area for the spot-breasted lapwing (Vanellus melanocephalus), which is endemic to the Ethiopian highlands.
ofravens commented on the word lapwing
He names a lapwing, starts rabbits in a rout
legging it most nimble
to sprigged hedge of bramble,
stalks red fox, shrewd stoat.
from "Ode for Ted," Sylvia Plath
April 14, 2008