1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. redshanks

Find the word definition

What is "redshanks"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
redshanks

Redshank \Red"shank`\ (r?d"sh?nk`), n.

  1. (Zo["o]l.)

    1. A common Old World limicoline bird ( Totanus calidris), having the legs and feet pale red. The spotted redshank ( Totanus fuscus) is larger, and has orange-red legs. Called also redshanks, redleg, and clee.

    2. The fieldfare.

  2. A bare-legged person; -- a contemptuous appellation formerly given to the Scotch Highlanders, in allusion to their bare legs.
    --Spenser.

Wiktionary
redshanks

n. 1 (plural of redshank English) 2 Common name of ''Adenostoma sparsifolium'' of southern California in the US and northern Baja California in Mexico.

Usage examples of "redshanks".

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.