Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several birds of paradise of the genus Ptiloris of Australia and New Guinea, characteristically having black and green plumage.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An Australian bird of paradise, Ptilorhis paradisea, belonging to the slender-billed section (Epimachinæ) of the family Paradiseidæ: said to have been so named by the early colonists from suggesting by its colors the uniform of the Rifle Brigade.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of beautiful birds of Australia and New Guinea, of the genera Ptiloris and Craspidophora, allied to the paradise birds.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of four
species ofbirds of paradise in thegenus Ptiloris .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun velvety black Australian bird of paradise with green and purple iridescence on head and tail
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
rifle + bird, from the resemblance of their black and green plumage to the uniform of early nineteenth-century British army riflemen.
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Examples
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Best of all are the tiny labels found on each and every page that describe what it is we are seeing and that have delicious names like sooty tern, paradise riflebird, and hepatic tanager.
Archive 2006-10-01 fusenumber8 2006
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