shrike

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

• noun Any of various carnivorous songbirds of the family Laniidae, having a screeching call and a strong hooked bill and often impaling its prey on sharp-pointed thorns or barbs of wire fencing.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A dentirostral oscine passerine bird of the family Laniidæ, having a notably strong hooked and toothed bill, and of actively predaceous nature; a butcher-bird; a nine-killer; a Wood-chat.
• noun One of many different birds that resemble shrikes, or were held to belong to the genus Lanius.
• noun An obsolete form of shriek.

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

• noun (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of oscinine birds of the family Laniidæ, having a strong hooked bill, toothed at the tip. Most shrikes are insectivorous, but the common European gray shrike (Lanius excubitor), the great northern shrike (L. borealis), and several others, kill mice, small birds, etc., and often impale them on thorns, and are, on that account called also butcher birds. See under butcher.
• noun See under Crow.
• noun Any one of several species of shrikelike Australian singing birds of the genus Colluricincla.
• noun Any one of several species of small Asiatic birds belonging to Allotrius, Pteruthius, Cutia, Leioptila, and allied genera, related to the true tits. Called also hill tit.
• noun See under Swallow.

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

• noun Any of various passerine birds of the family Laniidae which are known for their habit of catching other birds and small animals and impaling the uneaten portions of their bodies on thorns.

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

• noun any of numerous Old World birds having a strong hooked bill that feed on smaller animals