STARLING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Starling

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/stˈɑrlɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Starling n.

(Zool.) Any passerine bird belonging to Sturnus and allied genera. The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is dark brown or greenish black, with a metallic gloss, and spotted with yellowish white. It is a sociable bird, and builds about houses, old towers, etc. Called also stare, and starred. The pied starling of India is Sternopastor contra.

(Zool.) A California fish; the rock trout.

A structure of piles driven round the piers of a bridge for protection and support; called also sterling.

Rose-colored starling. (Zool.) See Pastor.

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Etymology of 'Starling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Starling" Quotes from Famous Books

... gathered and she swooped amongst them pulling feathers off their backs and out of their wings. Soon there was a heap of feathers on the ground—pigeons' feathers and pie's feathers, crane's and crow's, blackbird's and starling's. The King of Ireland's Son quickly gathered them into his bag. The falcon flew to another place and gave her bird-call again. The birds gathered, and she went amongst them, plucking their feathers. The King's Son ...

— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... came of a Suffolk family—one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. The famous "starling" was ...

— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... starling flew to his mother's window stane, It whistled and it sang, And aye, the ower word of the tune Was 'Johnnie tarries lang.' —JOHNNIE ...

— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not prove anything. A parrot or a starling can talk, too; that does not make them human beings by ...

— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg

... plaint, Or the starling's courtship quaint, Heart made much of; 'twas a boon Won from silence, and too soon Wasted in the ample air: Building rooks far distant were. Scarce at all would speak the rills, And I saw the idle hills, In their amber hazes deep, Fold themselves ...

— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

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