Crossword clues for bittern
bittern
- Relatively small compact tawny-brown heron with nocturnal habits and a booming cry
- Found in marshes
- Bird sometimes called a stake driver
- Swamp bird
- Marsh heron
- Very cold November for a marsh bird
- Marsh bird - part sea bird
- Opposite of sweet name for a bird
- Wading bird
- Some beer not originally for bird
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bittern \Bit"tern\, n. [From Bitter, a.]
The brine which remains in salt works after the salt is concreted, having a bitter taste from the chloride of magnesium which it contains.
A very bitter compound of quassia, cocculus Indicus, etc., used by fraudulent brewers in adulterating beer.
--Cooley.
Bittern \Bit"tern\, n. [OE. bitoure, betore, bitter, fr. F. butor; of unknown origin.] (Zo["o]l.) A wading bird of the genus Botaurus, allied to the herons, of various species.
Note: The common European bittern is Botaurus stellaris. It makes, during the brooding season, a noise called by Dryden bumping, and by Goldsmith booming. The American bittern is Botaurus lentiginosus, and is also called stake-driver and meadow hen. See Stake-driver.
Note: The name is applied to other related birds, as the least bittern ( Ardetta exilis), and the sun bittern.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
heron-like bird, 13c., botor, from Old French butor "bittern," perhaps from Gallo-Roman *butitaurus, from Latin butionem "bittern" + taurus "bull" (see steer (n.)); according to Pliny, so called because of its booming voice, but this seems fanciful. Modern form from 1510s.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. Several bird species in the Botaurinae subfamily of the heron family Ardeidae. Etymology 2
n. 1 The liquor remaining after halite (common salt) has been harvested from saline water (brine). 2 (context archaic English) A very bitter compound of quassia, cocculus indicus, etc., used by fraudulent brewers in adulterate beer.
WordNet
n. relatively small compact tawny-brown heron with nocturnal habits and a booming cry; found in marshes
Wikipedia
Bitterns are a classification of birds in the heron family of Pelican order of wading birds. Species named bitterns tend to be the shorter-necked, often more secretive members of this family. They were called hæferblæte in Old English; the word "bittern" came to English from Old French butor, itself from Gallo-Roman butitaurus, a compound of Latin būtiō and taurus. Bitterns form a monophyletic subfamily in the heron family, the Botaurinae.
Bitterns usually frequent reed beds and similar marshy areas, and feed on amphibians, reptiles, insects, and fish.
Unlike the similar storks, ibises, and spoonbills, herons, egrets, pelicans, and bitterns fly with their necks retracted, not outstretched.
The genus Ixobrychus contains mainly small species:
- Little bittern, Ixobrychus minutus
- Australian little bittern, Ixobrychus dubius
- New Zealand little bittern, Ixobrychus novaezelandiae ( extinct)
- Cinnamon bittern, Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
- Stripe-backed bittern, Ixobrychus involucris
- Least bittern, ''Ixobrychus exilis ''
- Yellow bittern, '' Ixobrychus sinensis''
- Schrenck's bittern, ''Ixobrychus eurhythmus ''
- Dwarf bittern, Ixobrychus sturmii
- Black bittern, Ixobrychus flavicollis
The genus Botaurus is the larger bitterns:
- American bittern, Botaurus lentiginosa.
- Eurasian bittern or great bittern, Botaurus stellaris
- South American bittern, Botaurus pinnatus
- Australasian bittern, Botaurus poiciloptilus
- Botaurus hibbardi ( fossil)
The genus Zebrilus includes only one species:
- Zigzag heron (or properly Zigzag bittern), Zebrilus undulatus
Bittern may refer to:
- Bittern, a classification of wading birds in the heron family
- Bittern (salt), a waste product of solar salt operations rich in magnesium sulfate
Usage examples of "bittern".
The dead bittern slid slowly down the slope of the roof to land in the shrubbery.
Emily used the bloody tissue to cover her fingers as she drew the bittern into clearer view on the lawn.
Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface.
But my nerves were unsteady, and though within fifty paces of the bittern I felt that I might miss.
In after years, when my life depended on steadiness of aim, I never felt so unnerved as I did when watching that bittern on that spring morning.
In my chagrin I threw my crossbow on the ground, when suddenly the bittern fell almost at my feet, an arrow having pierced its body from wing to wing.
Clad in a hunting vest with woollen hose, he was engaged in making horse-hair springes for snipes and plover, while his eyes brightened as he beheld the bittern, and he vouchsafed a quiet nod to our salutations.
We other hunters wore the hunting gear of woodcraft, namely, skull caps of deer hide, surmounted by the feathers of the eagle, the heron, or the bittern, while here and there was a cap with the wing of the wild goose across the front.
All looked as secure and peaceful as in days of yore, when we hunted the stag in the forest, or flushed a bittern in the mere of Pendyke.
He had a stuffed bittern in his study, and knew the names of quite a number of wild flowers, so his aunt had possibly some justification in describing him as a great naturalist.
Then he slew a cassowary and a flamingo and a grebe and a heron and a bittern and a pair of ducks and a shouting peacock and a dancing crane and a bustard and a lily-trotter and, wiping the sacred sweat from his brow with one ermine-trimmed sleeve, slew a wood pigeon and a cockatoo and a tawny owl and a snowy owl and a magpie and three jackdaws and a crow and a jay and a dove.
We passed through scattered belts of pinewood, where the wild cat howled and the owl screeched, and across broad stretches of fenland and moor, where the silence was only broken by the booming cry of the bittern or the fluttering of wild duck far above our heads.
The ruins of the old fort and the site of its burying ground lay between, but I could see the twinkle of lights where The Bitterns stood, across this point of land, overlooking not the ocean as Sea Oaks did but a wide stretch of marsh along the river.
Amalie had married Judge Gaylord Hampton of Hampton Island, and she had come here to live at The Bitterns, while my mother had married my Yankee father, Larry Ames, and moved to Chicago.
She had been with Aunt Amalie at The Bitterns when I had visited there as a small girl, and she had come with Elise to Sea Oaks when Elise had married.