JACKDAW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does jackdaw mean? 

• JACKDAW (noun)
  The noun JACKDAW has 1 sense:

1. common black-and-grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery

  Familiarity information: JACKDAW used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JACKDAW (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Common black-and-grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Corvus monedula; daw; jackdaw

Hypernyms ("jackdaw" is a kind of...):

corvine bird (birds of the crow family)

Holonyms ("jackdaw" is a member of...):

Corvus; genus Corvus (type genus of the Corvidae: crows and ravens)

 Context examples 

Her friends repeated the pleasing phrase enthusiastically, and for several minutes she stood, like a jackdaw in the fable, enjoying her borrowed plumes, while the rest chattered like a party of magpies.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

At which times they would approach as near as they durst, and imitate my actions after the manner of monkeys, but ever with great signs of hatred; as a tame jackdaw with cap and stockings is always persecuted by the wild ones, when he happens to be got among them.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As he walked up and down that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot—and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere—on everything—I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)