Starling
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A family, Sturnidae, of passerine birds.
- 2 An enclosure like a coffer-dam, formed of piles driven closely together before any structure or work, as a protection against the wash of waves, commonly used to protect the piers of a bridge.
- 3 gregarious birds native to the Old World wordnet
- 4 A family, Sturnidae, of passerine birds.; The common starling, Sturnus vulgaris, which has dark, iridescent plumage.
"Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide."
- 5 One of the piles used in forming such a breakwater.
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- 6 A fish, rock trout (Hexagrammos spp.), of the North Pacific, especially, Hexagrammos decagrammus, found in US waters.
- 1 An English surname transferred from the nickname from a nickname for a gregarious person.
"When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint, Starling, not to be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner — to the best of my belief, the longest dance ever performed […]"
- 2 A male given name transferred from the surname.
Example
More examples"Can you return starling chicks to their parents?"
Etymology
From Middle English starling, sterling, sterlinge, from Old English stærling, from stær (“starling”) + -ling (diminutive suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch sterlinck (“starling”).
Apparently a variant of staddling (although difficult to account for), or perhaps an alteration by association with another (unidentified) word.
Related phrases
More for "starling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.