LINNET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does linnet mean? 

• LINNET (noun)
  The noun LINNET has 2 senses:

1. small finch originally of the western United States and Mexico

2. small Old World finch whose male has a red breast and forehead

  Familiarity information: LINNET used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LINNET (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Small finch originally of the western United States and Mexico

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Carpodacus mexicanus; house finch; linnet

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

finch (any of numerous small songbirds with short stout bills adapted for crushing seeds)

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

Carpodacus; genus Carpodacus (house finches and purple finches)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Small Old World finch whose male has a red breast and forehead

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Carduelis cannabina; linnet; lintwhite

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

finch (any of numerous small songbirds with short stout bills adapted for crushing seeds)

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

Carduelis; genus Carduelis (in some classifications considered the type genus of a subfamily Carduelinae of the family Fringillidae: goldfinches; siskins; redpolls; linnets)

 Context examples 

It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This linnet, as near as I can remember, seemed to be somewhat larger than an English swan.

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

But one day, I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily, at a linnet, that I knocked him down, and seizing him by the neck with both my hands, ran with him in triumph to my nurse.

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