Chough

//t͡ʃʌf// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Either of two species of bird of the genus Pyrrhocorax in the crow family Corvidae that breed mainly in high mountains and on coastal sea cliffs of Eurasia.

    "For parot is no churlish Chowgh / nor no f[l]ekyd pye"

  2. 2
    a European corvine bird of small or medium size with red legs and glossy black plumage wordnet
  3. 3
    The white-winged chough, of genus Corcorax in the Australian mud-nest builders family, Corcoracidae, that inhabits dry woodlands.

Synonyms

All synonyms
hermit-crow

Example

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"The chough is similar to a blackbird."

Etymology

From Middle English choughe, choȝe, coo, cheo, from Old English ċēo (“a bird of the genus Corvus, a jay, crow, jackdaw, chough”) and ċeahhe (“a daw”), both from Proto-West Germanic *kahu (“jackdaw, crow”), from imitative Proto-Indo-European *gewH- (“to crow, caw, shout”). Cognate with Scots kae (“jackdaw”), West Frisian ka (“jackdaw”), Dutch kauw (“jackdaw, daw, chough”), Swedish kaja (“jackdaw”).

Related phrases

alpine choughred-billed choughwhite-winged choughyellow-billed chough

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.