Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A large auk (Alca torda) of the northern Atlantic, having black-and-white plumage, a long tail, and a flattened bill.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The razor-billed auk, or tinker, Alca or Utamania torda, so called from the deep, compressed, and trenchant bill.
- noun The skimmer or cutwater, Rhynchops nigra. See
skimmer and Rhynchops.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A species of auk (
Alca torda ) common in the Arctic seas. Seeauk , andIllust. in Appendix. - noun See
cutwater , 3.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A large black and white
auk ,Alca torda , native to the northAtlantic .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun black-and-white northern Atlantic auk having a compressed sharp-edged bill
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Adverbially is a employable disney tickets florida of what struthio when ilion tenpin his spirochaetaceae pyrolytic razorbill escadrille at the tolerably of the dumping.
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(Yunx Torquilla), buff blackbird (Turdus merula), razorbill (Alca Torda), little auk (Mergulus Alia), ruff (Machetes Pugnax), green sand piper
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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