Crossword clues for nestling
nestling
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nestle \Nes"tle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Nestled; p. pr. & vb. n. Nestling.] [AS. nestlian.]
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To make and occupy a nest; to nest. [Obs.]
The kingfisher . . . nestles in hollow banks.
--L'Estrange. -
To lie close and snug, as a bird in her nest; to cuddle up; to settle, as in a nest; to harbor; to take shelter.
Their purpose was to fortify in some strong place of the wild country, and there nestle till succors came.
--Bacon.The children were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.
--Clement Clarke Moore (A Visit From St. Nicholas, (a poem [1823]) also called The Night Before Christmas). To move about in one's place, like a bird when shaping the interior of her nest or a young bird getting close to the parent; as, a child nestles.
Nestling \Nes"tling\ n.
A young bird which has not abandoned the nest.
--Piers Plowman.A nest; a receptacle. [Obs.]
--Bacon.
Nestling \Nes"tling\, a. Newly hatched; being yet in the nest.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "bird too young to leave the nest," from nest (n.) + diminutive suffix -ling.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. 1 A small bird that is still confined to the nest. 2 (context obsolete English) A nest; a receptacle. Etymology 2
n. The act of one who nestles. vb. (present participle of nestle English)
WordNet
Usage examples of "nestling".
Johnnie and Polwarth hunted with wild-caught hawks instead of eyesses, the nestlings.
Periodically, raids were made upon the villages and plains by marauders from the hills, but these were mostly by the passes through the ghauts, thirty or forty miles left or right from the little state which, nestling at the foot of the hills, for the most part escaped these visitations--which, now that the British had become possessed of the territories and the hills, had, it was hoped, finally ceased.
Black marauders among blithe birds of peace and joy, they watched like sable spirits near the nests, or on some near sea rocks, sombre and alone, blinked evilly at the tall bright cliffs and the lightsome legions nestling there.
Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track,-- God guides their wing, He spreads their table that they nothing lack,-- Before the daisy grows a common flower, Before the sun has power To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.
He looked over the curtain and saw Odder nestling in its valley to the west--it was just visible beyond the intervening ridge--and, eastward, Dowlandsbar and the rugged country beyond.
Feathers had been woven into ita tiny owlet nestled at the base of the topknot, a nestling Kethry thought to be a clever carving, until it moved its head and blinked.
She had ex pected something large and square and imposing, rather than this charming old manor-house nestling like a con tented babe in the warm sunshine.
The striations contain the chlorophyll, and the little spheres nestling against these striations contain the phycobilins, which make a red alga red.
Kessentai slumped to the floor of its tenar, whimpering like a nestling plucked from the breeding pens for a light snack.
Now that Sigward was dead her lord was a small, sucking baby nestling in the freckled arms of Epona, the Wealy woman.
He had never made her a single present and even her ring was found to be brass and therefore neither valid nor binding: whereas the present Jack had given her long ago yet not so very long ago neither was close to her heart at this very moment: she had put on a new pinner for the occasion, and now undoing it she leant over the table, showing him the diamond pendant he had bought for her in the year two, one of the many charming fruits of a valuable prize, nestling low in her bosom.
It had occurred to me on my previous visit, and I was reminded of it now, how very like a racoon she looked with her pale face and large dark eyes nestling in heavy black eye-shadow.
I climbed gentle hills from whose summits I could see entrancing panoramas of loveliness, with steepled towns nestling in verdant valleys, and with the golden domes of gigantic cities glittering on the infinitely distant horizon.
German town of Eisenach, nestling at the foot of the wooded heights which form part of the romantically beautiful district of the Thuringer Wald.
Here was unspoilt counky, the soft Sussex of undulating hills topped with tree rings, of acres of fir forest and little brown-roofed farms nestling in woody hollows.