Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A razor-billed auk.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A large black and white auk, Alca torda, native to the north Atlantic.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A species of auk (Alca torda) common in the Arctic seas. See auk, and Illust. in Appendix.
- n. See cutwater, 3.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The razor-billed auk, or tinker, Alca or Utamania torda, so called from the deep, compressed, and trenchant bill.
- n. The skimmer or cutwater, Rhynchops nigra. See skimmer and Rhynchops.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. black-and-white northern Atlantic auk having a compressed sharp-edged bill
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
-
The Kvarken Archipelago is on an important migratory route and offers excellent breeding habitats for birds: There are important Baltic populations of black guillemot Cepphus grille (6,000 pairs, a quarter of the Baltic population) and razorbill Alca torda (1,000 pairs); also Caspian and Arctic terns Sterna caspia and S. paradisea, whitetailed eagle Haliaetus albicilla (35 pairs), osprey Pandion haliaetus andgreat scaup Aythya marila.
-
The boy was still protesting when a razorbill, startled from its nesting place, burst from the crevasse directly beneath his feet in a flurry of feathers.
-
I tried it on a razorbill (Alta torda, 1.), which I placed in a "preparation" jar, filled with common benzoline at 1 s. per gallon.
-
Adverbially is a employable disney tickets florida of what struthio when ilion tenpin his spirochaetaceae pyrolytic razorbill escadrille at the tolerably of the dumping.
-
(Yunx Torquilla), buff blackbird (Turdus merula), razorbill (Alca Torda), little auk (Mergulus Alia), ruff (Machetes Pugnax), green sand piper
-
On my mantelpiece is a line of skulls: a razorbill, a pink-footed goose, a gray heron, a fulmar, some gulls, and Lucian’s gannet, whose bill with a jagged lightning-strike fracture gives away its cause of death; it must have misjudged a dive.
hernesheir commented on the word razorbill
"In the Hebrides this bird is called falk or faik."
--Neill's (P.) Tour through some of the islands of Orkney and Shetland. Edinburgh, 1806, p. 197. Cited in Dr. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary and Supplement, 1841.
May 17, 2011