The Collaborative International Dictionary
Plover \Plov"er\, n. [OF. plovier, F. pluvier, prop., the rain bird, fr. LL. (assumed) pluviarius, fr. L. pluvia rain, from pluere to rain; akin to E. float, G. fliessen to flow. See Float.]
(Zo["o]l.) Any one of numerous species of limicoline birds belonging to the family Charadrid[ae], and especially those belonging to the subfamily Charadrins[ae]. They are prized as game birds.
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(Zo["o]l.) Any grallatorial bird allied to, or resembling, the true plovers, as the crab plover ( Dromas ardeola); the American upland, plover ( Bartramia longicauda); and other species of sandpipers. Note: Among the more important species are the blackbellied plover or blackbreasted plover ( Charadrius squatarola) of America and Europe; -- called also gray plover, bull-head plover, Swiss plover, sea plover, and oxeye; the golden plover (see under Golden); the ring plover or ringed plover ( [AE]gialitis hiaticula). See Ringneck. The piping plover ( [AE]gialitis meloda); Wilson's plover ( [AE]gialitis Wilsonia); the mountain plover ( [AE]gialitis montana); and the semipalmated plover ( [AE]gialitis semipalmata), are all small American species. Bastard plover (Zo["o]l.), the lapwing. Long-legged plover, or yellow-legged plover. See Tattler. Plover's page, the dunlin. [Prov. Eng.] Rock plover, or Stone plover, the black-bellied plover. Whistling plover.
The golden plover.
The black-bellied plover.
Wiktionary
n. 1 Eurasian golden plover, ''Pluvialis apricaria'' 2 Pacific golden plover, ''Pluvialis fulva'' 3 American golden plover, (taxlink Pluvialis dominic species noshow=1)
WordNet
n. plovers of Europe and America having the backs marked with golden-yellow spots
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "golden plover".
The Golden Plover and the Arctic Tern, today that big abstraction's at my door, for juncoes and the robins soon will leave, and nesting scrabblers will pick up all the string, and soon in hazy day of April summer heat across the hill, without a book I'll know, the seabirds'll chase spring north along the coast: they'll be nesting in Alaska in six weeks.
But after what we endured in Golden Plover we can always be together.
And into it they put the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in the evening on the wings of the golden plover.
Catherine had travelled in all kinds of vessel, from humble merchantman to the ill-fated Golden Plover.
A human-sized Golden Plover with iridescent feathers fell past in a headlong swan dive.