spinus

Definitions

noun An old name of some small bird which feeds on seeds, as a thistle-bird, linnet, siskin, or bunting.
noun Hence A genus of thistle-birds named by Koch in 1816, containing the linnet, the siskin or aberdevine, the goldfinch, the redpoll, and others, both of Europe and of America.

noun in some classifications considered a subgenus of Carduelis: siskins and New World goldfinches

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word spinus.

One of the elephant's vertebrae, left, and the spurs off the back of the vertebrae, called the spinus process, that were so large I thought they were bones of a sheep or a goat.

Interactive Dig Hierakonpolis - The Elite Cemetery: Week 5 2002
Meanwhile, in the test trench within the large depression, numerous elephant bones were appearing: a portion of tusk, foot bones, vertebral disks the size of hockey pucks, and strange bones that I thought to be the legs of sheep or goats, until I was shown they were the vertebral spinus processes, the pointy bits on the back of the vertebrae that you can feel going down your back.

Interactive Dig Hierakonpolis - The Elite Cemetery: Week 5 2002
There is more about Pallas in book-titles (to which additions can easily be made), and about "Jonson's Cri-spinus or Cri-spinas," but perhaps we have now the gist of Mr. Greenwood's remarks on the

Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown Andrew Lang 1878