chough

American  

[chuhf] / tʃʌf /

noun

1. any of several crowlike Old World birds, especially Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, of Europe.

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chough British  

/ tʃʌf /

noun

1. a large black passerine bird, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, of parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, with a long downward-curving red bill: family Corvidae (crows)

2. a smaller related bird, Pyrrhocorax graculus, with a shorter yellow bill

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Etymology

Origin of chough

1275–1325; Middle English choghe; akin to Old English cēo, Dutch kauw, Danish kaa

Example Sentences

She found it easier this time, and there was the chough, with her in her own world, perching on a branch that hung low over the pavement.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

There be that can rule Naples As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo: I myself could make A chough of as deep chat.

From The Tempest by Shakespeare, William

There be that can rule Naples As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate 255 As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo; I myself could make A chough of as deep chat.

From The Tempest The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] by Glover, John, librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge

And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt, neat, quaint, dainty, trim, tricked up, brisk, smirk, and smug, even as a pretty little Cornish chough.

From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 by Motteux, Peter Anthony

I experimented on a Cornish chough — an old specimen, infested with maggots or larvae of the "clothes" moth.

From Practical Taxidermy A manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds. To which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums. With additional instructions in modelling and artistic taxidermy. by Browne, Montagu