PELICAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pelican mean? 

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

1. large long-winged warm-water seabird having a large bill with a distensible pouch for fish

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• PELICAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Large long-winged warm-water seabird having a large bill with a distensible pouch for fish

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

pelecaniform seabird (large fish-eating seabird with four-toed webbed feet)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pelican"):

Pelecanus erythrorhynchos; white pelican (large American pelican; white with black wing feathers)

Old world white pelican; Pelecanus onocrotalus (similar to American white pelican)

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

family Pelecanidae; Pelecanidae (pelicans)

 Context examples 

Yes, I said, peering through it, a large bird stands on the tree. It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen, speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is not a pelican, nor, indeed, is it a bird.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)