Wagtail

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of various small passerine birds, principally of genus Motacilla, of the Old World, notable for their long tails.
  2. 2
    Old World bird having a very long tail that jerks up and down as it walks wordnet
  3. 3
    Ellipsis of wagtail platy. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis

Synonyms

All synonyms
atlasmissilerocketwashtail

Example

More examples

"The osprey and the sea mew, fly down to catch fish, but the Heron catches them while standing on the banks. The bittern puts its bill into the water and bellows like an ox. The water wagtail wags its tail."

Etymology

From a partial suppletion of Middle English wagstert (literally “wag-tail”), equivalent to wag + tail.

Related phrases

wagtail-tyrantold world

More for "wagtail"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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