chaffinch
pronunciation
How to pronounce chaffinch in British English:
UK [ˈtʃæfɪntʃ]
How to pronounce chaffinch in American English:
US [ ˈtʃæfɪntʃ]
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- Noun:
- small European finch with a cheerful song
Word Origin
- chaffinch
- chaffinch: [OE] Etymologically, a chaffinch is a finch which gets its food by pecking amongst the chaff and other grain debris in the barnyard. The word chaff itself (Old English ceaf) probably goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *kaf-, *kef- ‘chew’, which was also the source of chafer ‘beetle’ [OE] (literally the ‘chewing creature’) and jowl. (The verb chaff ‘make fun of’ [19], on the other hand, is probably an alteration of chafe, which came via Old French chaufer and Vulgar Latin *califāre from Latin calefacere ‘make warm’, a relative of English cauldron and calorie.)=> chafer, jowl
- chaffinch (n.)
- Fringilla cælebs, Old English ceaffinc, literally "chaff-finch," so called for its habit of eating waste grain among the chaff on farms. See chaff + finch.
Example
- 1. Thorpe also showed that the chaffinch is selective imitate .
- 2. We have been surrounded by birds all our lives , yet so feeble is our observation that many of us could not tell whether or not the chaffinch sings , or the colour of the cuckoo .
- 3. Because I shared his fascination with the chaffinch song , he had invited me to join his research group .
- 4. Thorpe also showed that the chaffinch is selective in what it will imitate .
- 5. Thorpe next set out to determine exactly when the chaffinch learns to sing .