Crossword clues for killdeer
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Killdee \Kill"dee`\, Killdeer \Kill"deer`\, n. [So named from its notes.] (Zo["o]l.) A small American plover ( Charadrius vociferus, formerly [AE]gialitis vocifera) of inland waters and fields having a distinctive cry. The adult has two black bands around the neck and upper breast, but the young chick has only the breast band. It ranges from Canada to Mexico and the West Indies.
Syn: kildeer, killdeer plover, Charadrius vociferus.
Note: It is dark grayish brown above; the rump and upper tail coverts are yellowish rufous; the belly, throat, and a line over the eyes, white; a ring round the neck and band across the breast, black.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also killdee, 1731, American English, species of North American ring-plover, the name imitative of its cry.
Wiktionary
n. A North American plover (''Charadrius vociferus'') with a distinctive cry and territorial behavior that includes feigning injury to distract interlopers from the nest.
WordNet
n. American plover of inland waters and fields having a distinctive cry [syn: kildeer, killdeer plover, Charadrius vociferus]
Gazetteer
Housing Units (2000): 351
Land area (2000): 0.947235 sq. miles (2.453327 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 0.947235 sq. miles (2.453327 sq. km)
FIPS code: 42700
Located within: North Dakota (ND), FIPS 38
Location: 47.370081 N, 102.755046 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 58640
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Killdeer
Wikipedia
The killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) is a medium-sized plover. The genus name Charadrius is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek kharadrios a bird found in ravines and river valleys (kharadra, "ravine"). The specific '' vociferus '' is Latin and comes from vox, "cry" and '' ferre'', "to bear".
The adults have a brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with two black bands. The rump is tawny orange. The face and cap are brown with a white forehead. The eyering is orange-red. The chicks are patterned almost identically to the adults, and are precocial — able to move around immediately after hatching. The killdeer frequently uses a "broken wing act" to distract predators from the nest. It is named onomatopoeically after its call.
A killdeer is a type of bird.
Killdeer may refer to:
- Kildeer, Illinois, U.S.
- Killdeer, North Dakota, U.S.
- Killdeer, Saskatchewan, a Canadian village in census Division No. 3, Saskatchewan
- Battle of Killdeer Mountain, a battle in the U.S. Army's 1864 Expedition against the Sioux, in Dakota Territory
Usage examples of "killdeer".
The Iroquois on the opposite shore was in the act of aiming when the fatal messenger from Killdeer arrived.
Ask any of the 60th, and they can tell you what Killdeer can do, and has done, and that, too, when the bullets were flying about our heads like hailstones.
French, Killdeer and I have gone through too much in company to part very easily.
I thought she did, Sergeant, though not much given to showy and parade evolutions, I would shoulder Killdeer and quit the garrison before her pretty eyes had time to frown.
Sergeant, I sometimes think that it is all as much owing to Killdeer as to any skill of my own.
So unwilling, indeed, did this individual, a man of iron nerves, and one long accustomed to the dangers of the peculiar warfare in which he was engaged, appear to remain exposed to the assaults of Killdeer, whose reputation throughout all that frontier was as well established as that of Marlborough in Europe, that he did not disdain to seek a cover, insisting that his two prisoners should follow him.
When perfectly convinced on this material point, Pathfinder rejoined our heroine in the principal apartment, setting down the light and examining the priming of Killdeer before he seated himself.
It must be a pressing errand that brings you under the loops of a blockhouse at this hour of the night, with the sartainty of Killdeer being inside of it.
The next trial was when I found the rifle that is sartainly the only one in this part of the world that can be calculated on as surely as Killdeer, and knowed that by taking it, or even hiding it, I might at once rise to be the first shot in all these parts.
Then a night hawk screamed, a whippoor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song.
Which gave him great joy except for one minor consideration: the barking came from underneath the ground hi an alfalfa field where a thousand graceful, noisy birds called killdeer were nesting.
At first the nesting killdeer screeched and whistled in alarm, flying frantically in all directions and repeatedly dive-bombing the mad sheepherder dressed in rags, who paid them no mind.
As was their custom, they split the herd and had driven part of it into the Killdeer, a steep-walled gorge blocked off with boulders and felled trees at one end.
After they had escaped the Killdeer, Quick and his men had run for home.
Where the white killdeer has built her fair nest, Your pillow sweet clover, your blanket the grass The moon shines on you as the wind whistles past.