lapwing

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lapwing

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Vanellus

Wikispecies

From Middle English lapwynge, lapwynke, lappewincke, lapwynche, lhapwynche, from Old English hlēapewince (“lapwing”), from Old English hlēapan (“to leap”) + wincian (“to wink, make a sign”), due to its manner of flight. Cognate with West Frisian ljip (“lapwing”).

The modern form is influenced by folk etymology to resemble English wing.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlæpwɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

lapwing (plural lapwings)

1. Any of several medium-sized wading birds belonging to the subfamily Vanellinae, within family Charadriidae.
   • 1986, Steven L. Hilty, Bill Brown, A Guide to the Birds of Colombia, page 149:

     Plovers and lapwings are a large, virtually worldwide family that differs from sandpipers in, among other things, having a shorter, thicker, pigeonlike bill and more robust proportions.

   • 2010, Des Thompson, Ingvar Byrkjedal, Tundra Plovers, page 36:

     The resident tropical plovers have much less pointed wings, and most of the lapwings have fairly rounded wing-tips, a wing shape apparently more adapted to aerial manoeuvrability than to long-distance migration.

   • 2010, Clive Finlayson, Birds of the Strait of Gibraltar, page 244:

     Lapwings are abundant winter visitors to the area but, like the Golden Plovers, vary greatly in number between years.

   1. The northern lapwing (Vanellus vanellus).
2. A silly man.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

• plover

• Lapwing on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Pawling, pawling