Crossword clues for redshank
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Redshank \Red"shank`\ (r?d"sh?nk`), n.
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(Zo["o]l.)
A bare-legged person; -- a contemptuous appellation formerly given to the Scotch Highlanders, in allusion to their bare legs.
--Spenser.
Wiktionary
n. 1 Either of two species of Old World wading bird in the genus ''Tringa'' that have long red legs. 2 (context obsolete derogatory English) A bare-legged person; one of the Scottish Highlanders, who wore kilts.
WordNet
n. a common Old World wading bird with long red legs [syn: Tringa totanus]
Wikipedia
Redshank can refer to:
- Two species of birds:
- Common redshank (Tringa totanus)
- Spotted redshank (Tringa erythropus)
- Several species of plant:
- Redshank Adenostoma sparsifolium, a shrub
- Redshank Persicaria maculosa, formerly Polygonum persicaria, an herb
- Redshank Ceratodon purpureus, a moss
- Scarce redshank Ceratodon conicus, a moss
- Redshank (soldier), 16th-century Scottish mercenaries
Redshank was a nickname for Scottish mercenaries from the Highlands' Western Isles. They were a prominent feature of Irish armies throughout the 16th century. They were called Redshanks because they went dressed in kilts and waded bare-legged through rivers in the coldest weather. They were usually armed alike, principally with bows and two-handed claymores.
They came from the clans of the Hebrides because of the recent breakup of the Lordship of the Isles, as well as from the poorer clans of mainland Scotland. The Redshanks mostly came from the clans of MacLeod, MacQuarrie, MacLean, MacDonald, and Campbell.
Unlike the Gallowglass, which were hired for long periods of service and paid in land and beef, the Redshanks were hired for the summer months. They were billeted (housed) with civilians, usually by force. This was known as the Buannacht system.
Usage examples of "redshank".
The selection of wildfowl was especially cosmopolitan, including bittern, shoveler, pewit, godwit, quail, dotterl, heronsew, crane, snipe, plover, redshank, pheasant, grouse, and curlew.
The place was alive with birds--curlew and plover and redshank and sandpiper--and as he jumped the little brackish ditches Jaikie put up skeins of wild duck.
Crabs in the gullies, fish in the creeks, curlew and redshank and brent geese fly here every winter all the way from Siberia.
As flocks of dunlin or redshank stream and wheel and soar and quiver over our estuaries, so above the great tide-flooded cultivated regions of these worlds the animated clouds of avians maneuvered, each cloud a single center of consciousness.
It was as though the spontaneous evolutions of many distinct flocks of redshank and dunlin were multiplied a thousand-fold in complexity, and subordinated to a single ever-developing terpsichorean theme.
As flocks of dunlin or redshank stream and wheel and soar and quiver over.
When Richard comes he will take you on the sea-wall and show you the redshanks in the little streams among the mud.
She had turned and looked down, as she always did when human complexities made her seek reassurance as to the worth of this world, on the shiny mud-flats, blue-veined with the running tides, and green marshes where the redshanks choired.
But nothing came to her save the memory of the cold, wet, unargumentative cry of the redshanks that she had heard on the marshes.
The call of the redshanks, the cloud shadows that moved over the marshes like the footprints of invisible presences, made her feel calm.
It was thousands and thousands of waders, stints and knots and redshanks and the like, flying in batches, each batch making the noise of a great wave on a beach.
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.
It was thick and clamorous with birds, shocking-pink flamingos and white spoonbills, greylag geese and wigeon, black-wing stilts wading about on their absurd spindly legs, redshanks dipping their long bills for shellfish and insect "larvae, although they hadn't gotten ahead of the mosquitoes, from the clouds that buzzed about.
It was thick and clamorous with birds, shocking-pink flamingos and white spoonbills, greylag geese and wigeon, black-wing stilts wading about on their absurd spindly legs, redshanks dipping their long bills for shellfish and insect “larvae, although they hadn’t gotten ahead of the mosquitoes, from the clouds that buzzed about.