adj, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A gullible fool, especially an elderly person with impaired faculties.

   "This poor dotterel, Sir Arthur, is playing fast and loose with me."

2. 2
   rare plover of upland areas of Eurasia wordnet
3. 3
   A small brown-and-black bird of species Charadrius morinellus, of the plover family.
4. 4
   Any of various small birds of Australasia thought to resemble the Eurasian dotterel. Australia, New-Zealand

Adjective

1. 1
   decayed

   "some old dotterel trees"

Synonyms

All synonyms

assweedblitherboneheadboobybotcharadrius morinellus

Example

More examples

"This poor dotterel, Sir Arthur, is playing fast and loose with me."

Etymology

15th century. From dote (“to be foolish; senile”) + -rel (“pejorative suffix”). The bird is so named as it is easy to catch.

Related phrases

Eurasian dotterelblack-fronted dotterelhooded dotterelinland dotterelred-kneed dotterelsea dotterelshore dottereltawny-throated dotterel

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