Crossword clues for wryneck
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wryneck \Wry"neck\, n. (Med.)
A twisted or distorted neck; a deformity in which the neck is drawn to one side by a rigid contraction of one of the muscles of the neck; torticollis.
a person suffering from torticollis.
(Zo["o]l.) Any one of several species of Old World birds of the genus Jynx or subfamily Jynginae, allied to the woodpeckers; especially, the common European species ( Jynx torguilla); -- so called from its habit of turning the neck around in different directions. Called also cuckoo's mate, snakebird, summer bird, tonguebird, and writheneck.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 Either of two small woodpeckers, (taxlink Jynx torquilla species noshow=1) and (taxlink Jynx ruficollis species noshow=1), of the Old World that can turn their heads almost 180 degrees. 2 (context medicine dated English) A twisted or distorted neck; a deformity in which the neck is drawn to one side by a rigid contraction of one of the muscles; torticollis.
WordNet
n. an unnatural condition in which the head leans to one side because the neck muscles on that side are contracted [syn: torticollis]
Old World woodpecker with a peculiar habit of twisting the neck
Wikipedia
The wrynecks (genus Jynx) are a small but distinctive group of small Old World woodpeckers. Jynx is from the Ancient Greek iunx, the Eurasian wryneck.
Like the true woodpeckers, wrynecks have large heads, long tongues which they use to extract their insect prey and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backwards. However, they lack the stiff tail feathers that the true woodpeckers use when climbing trees, so they are more likely than their relatives to perch on a branch rather than an upright trunk.
Their bills are shorter and less dagger-like than in the true woodpeckers, but their chief prey are ants and other insects, which they find in decaying wood or almost bare soil. They re-use woodpecker holes for nesting, rather than making their own holes. The eggs are white, as with many hole nesters.
The two species have cryptic plumage, with intricate patterning of greys and browns. The voice is a nasal woodpecker-like call.
These birds get their English name from their ability to turn their heads almost 180 degrees. When disturbed at the nest, they use this snake-like head twisting and hissing as a threat display.
There are two species:
- Eurasian wryneck, Jynx torquilla
- Red-throated wryneck, or Rufous-necked wryneck, Jynx ruficollis
Usage examples of "wryneck".
If they had not stolen my chatelette we would have been still sitting beside the soak when that thing called Wryneck came upon us.
He shook his head, remembering the extreme pain that call had caused him at an earlier time, but almost at once his mind was taken off by the sight of a wryneck, a bird he had much more often heard than seen.
Stephen found that there were still five men to go in and be got out, he observed that he had seen a wryneck over on the far side of the demesne, and he made no doubt it was still there.
Dr Daruwalla to the hospital, where one surgery for clubfoot and another for wryneck awaited him.
Pythian Ode, Aphrodite gives the wryneck to Jason as the magical means to seduce Medea, and with it he binds the princess to him through her obsessive love.
Soon, the wryneck would be calling, and the cuckoo ringing the valley with its double note.
The wryneck was thought to build the nest, and hatch and feed the young of the cuckoo.
Edgerton adds a breadth of detail to the world and its history, and her creations -- the Goblin races, the wrynecks, the pads, the Maglore, the human kingdoms in turmoil, serve as much more than simple backdrop.
The wrynecks do not climb trees but scratch upon the ground for the ants they love to eat.
He foresaw nothing but a city of starved corpses, covering the sidewalks and the grass of the parks, lying belly up in the fountains, hanging wrynecked from the streetlamps.