Yellowhammer
//ˈjɛl.əʊˌhæm.ə(ɹ)// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A passerine bird, Emberiza citrinella, of western Eurasia, which is mainly yellow in colour.
- 2 European bunting the male being bright yellow wordnet
- 3 The northern flicker, Colaptes auratus, a woodpecker with yellow underwings and undertail and often other yellowish underparts; one of its ways of feeding is to hammer on trees to find insects (adults and larvae) to eat. US
- 4 large flicker of eastern North America with a red neck and yellow undersurface to wings and tail wordnet
- 5 A native or resident of the American state of Alabama.
Etymology
Alteration (influenced by hammer) of earlier yelambre, yelamber, from Middle English *yelwambre, from yelwe (“yellow”) + *ambre (“yellowhammer”), from Old English amore, related to Old High German amaro (“yellowhammer”) (see modern German Ammer).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.