What does "lory" mean?

Any of various small, brightly coloured parrots native to Australasia. They are usually classified in the subfamily Loriinae.

Lory

//ˈlɒɹi// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Any of various small, brightly coloured parrots native to Australasia. They are usually classified in the subfamily Loriinae.
2
small brightly colored Australasian parrots having a brush-tipped tongue for feeding on nectar and soft fruits wordnet

From Malay luri, name of kind of parrot, said to be a dialectal variant of Malay nuri. Doublet of lourie. Unrelated to Spanish loro.

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