blackbird
Pronunciation Noun
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Pronunciation Noun
blackbird (plural blackbirds)
- A common true thrush, Turdus merula, found in woods and gardens over much of Eurasia, and introduced elsewhere.
- A variety of New World birds of the family Icteridae (26 species of icterid bird).
- (slang, derogatory, historical, among slavers and pirates) A native of the South Pacific islands.
- (Turdus merula) common blackbird; Eurasian blackbird; merle, merl; ouzel
- (Icteridae) icterid
- French: merle, merlesse
- German: Amsel, Schwarzdrossel
- Italian: merlo
- Portuguese: melro
- Russian: чёрный дрозд
- Spanish: mirlo
- Spanish: turpial, soldadito
blackbird (blackbirds, present participle blackbirding; past and past participle blackbirded)
- To enslave someone, especially through chicanery or force
- 2005, Wal F. Bird, Me No Go Mally Bulla: Recruiting and Blackbirding in the Queensland Labour Trade 1863–1906, published by Ginninderra Press, ISBN 1740272897, ISBN 9781740272896
- 2000, Kate Fortune and Brij V. Lal, The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia – Volume 1, published by University of Hawaiʻi, p. 208, ISBN 0-8248-2265-X
- “At the same time, island communities — especially in coastal areas, where the effect of population loss was often enormous — sometimes retaliated against blackbirding raids.”
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003