Crossword clues for curlew
curlew
- Cousin of the sandpiper
- Large migratory shorebirds of the sandpiper family
- Closely related to woodcocks but having a down-curved bill
- Shore bird
- Winger's reminder to cover both sides and find width
- Wading bird initially watched by French priest crossing lake
- Scoundrel, mostly lascivious, doing for flapper
- French priest crossing lake initially watching wader
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Curlew \Cur"lew\ (k[^u]r"l[=u]), n. [F. courlieu, corlieu, courlis; perh. of imitative origin, but cf. OF. corlieus courier; L. currere to run + levis light.] (Zo["o]l.) A wading bird of the genus Numenius, remarkable for its long, slender, curved bill.
Note: The common European curlew is Numenius arquatus. The long-billed ( Numenius longirostris), the Hudsonian ( Numenius Hudsonicus), and the Eskimo curlew ( Numenius borealis, are American species. The name is said to imitate the note of the European species.
Curlew Jack (Zo["o]l.) the whimbrel or lesser curlew.
Curlew sandpiper (Zo["o]l.), a sandpiper ( Tringa ferruginea or Tringa subarquata), common in Europe, rare in America, resembling a curlew in having a long, curved bill. See Illustation in Appendix.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mid-14c., from Old French courlieu (13c., Modern French courlis), said to be imitative of the bird's cry but apparently assimilated with corliu "runner, messenger," from corre "to run" (see current (adj.)). The bird is a good runner.
Wiktionary
n. Any of several migratory wading birds in the genus ''Numenius'' of the family Scolopacidae, remarkable for their long, slender, downcurved bills.
WordNet
n. large migratory shorebirds of the sandpiper family; closely related to woodcocks but having a down-curved bill
Gazetteer
Housing Units (2000): 36
Land area (2000): 0.758220 sq. miles (1.963780 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 0.758220 sq. miles (1.963780 sq. km)
FIPS code: 17895
Located within: Iowa (IA), FIPS 19
Location: 42.980293 N, 94.737480 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 50527
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Curlew
Wikipedia
The curlews , genus Numenius, are a group of eight species of birds, characterised by long, slender, downcurved bills and mottled brown plumage. The English name is imitative of the Eurasian curlew's call, but may have been influenced by the Old French corliu, "messenger", from ''courir , "to run". It was first recorded in 1377 in Langland's Piers Plowman "Fissch to lyue in þe flode..Þe corlue by kynde of þe eyre''". The genus name Numenius is from Ancient Greek noumenios, a bird mentioned by Hesychius. It is associated with the curlews because it appears to be derived from neos, "new" and mene "moon", referring to the crescent-shaped bill In Europe "curlew" usually refers to one species, the Eurasian curlew Numenius arquata.
They are one of the most ancient lineages of scolopacid waders, together with the godwits which look similar but have straight bills.
Curlews feed on mud or very soft ground, searching for worms and other invertebrates with their long bills. They will also take crabs and similar items.
Curlews enjoy a worldwide distribution. Most species show strong migratory habits and consequently one or more species can be encountered at different times of the year in Europe, Ireland, Britain, Iberia, Iceland, Africa, Southeast Asia, Siberia, North America, South America and Australasia.
The distribution of curlews has altered considerably in the past hundred years as a result of changing agricultural practices. Reclamation and drainage of marshy fields and moorland, and afforestation of the latter, have led to local decreases, while conversion of forest to grassland in some parts of Scandinavia has led to increases there.
The stone-curlews are not true curlews (family Scolopacidae) but members of the family Burhinidae, which is in the same order Charadriiformes, but only distantly related within that.
Curlew is the common name for a group of birds of the family Scolopacidae.
Curlew can also refer to:
- The Curlew, song cycle by Peter Warlock
- Curlew (band), jazz group
- Curlew Island, Tasmania, Australia
- Curlew River, opera by Benjamin Britten
- Curlew, California, USA
- Curlew, Iowa, USA
- Curlew, Kentucky
- Curlew, Washington, USA
- CSS Curlew, Confederate Navy gunboat, USA
- Curlew (steamboat), Merchant propeller steamer, USN Gunboat and USQMD Transport
Curlew is the eponymously titled debut studio album by Curlew, released in 1981 by Landslide Records.
Usage examples of "curlew".
On Thursday evening there was to be a dance at Curlew, the country home of the Peytons, and Jenny Blair had been invited to spend the night with Bena and watch the illuminated fountain from the upstairs porch of the nursery.
Ushered into the hallway, he catches sight of Doctor Curlew almost disappearing at the top of the stairs, and can barely resist rudely shaking off the servant as she fusses with his coat.
Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews!
At the farthest tip, near Cape Sable, the sky flashed with wild birds: herons, curlews, ibises, blue egrets, white pelicans, sandpipers and a few roseate spoonbills.
Some guided Yankees in the winter, then come back mullet-seining in the summer, shot all our curlews off Duck Island, set their trout nets right there on the grass northwest of Mormon Key.
Cretaceous, birds like the curlew might have been able to go on eating shoreline animals while the dominant enantiornithine birds died along with the dinosaurs.
She mounted steadily, and her spirit rode, as it were, before her, longing to get up there among the peewits and curlew, to feel the crisp, peaty earth slip away under her, and the wind drive in her face, under that deep blue sky.
Of such therefore as are bred in our land, we have the crane, the bitter,the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the heron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or doterell, brant, lark, plover (of both sorts), lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveller, peewitt, seamew, barnacle, quail (who, only with man, are subject to the falling sickness), the knot, the oliet or olive, the dunbird, woodcock, partridge, and pheasant, besides divers others, whose names to me are utterly unknown, and much more the taste of their flesh, wherewith I was never acquainted.
It was a strange, alien world of sea creeks and mudflats and great pale barriers of reeds higher than a man's head, inhabited only by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia to winter on the mud flats.
It was a strange, alien world of sea creeks and mudflats and great pale barriers of reeds higher than a mans head, inhabited only by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia to winter on the mud flats.
He'd spotted a mountain plover, a long-billed curlew, a burrowing owl and a horned lark, plus the usual assortment of lark sparrows, yellow warblers, western meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, crows, black terns and mourning doves.
Mounting to her eyes, her vexation seized wherever she turned them to be seized in turn by the unwavering leer of the Masai warrior on the magazine cover displayed, along with Town & Country and a National Geographic, on the coffee table, and she picked up the bird book for refuge in godwits and curlews, sandpipers, snipe, the repose they conjured as quickly gone with another turn of the page and she was up and through the kitchen, tapping on the white door Mister McCandless?
With nothing better to do, I spent many happy hours bird-watching, and the event in question occurred late one afternoon when I was making my way through a riverine forest in search of the Long-billed Curlew.
Up them inland creeks, Last Huston Bay, Alligator Bay, egrets was thick, pink curlew, too, and we never failed to take a deer or two for venison, sometimes a turkey.
The alligators congregated like hounds around their master, the wheeling cries of the dense cloud of sentinel birds overhead, nile plover and stone curlew, piercing the morning air.