birb

Alteration of bird. Possibly coined by Katie Gouldin on the humorous Twitter account @ProBirdRights in a 2012 tweet, although it did not become widely used until 2014.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɜːb/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɜɹb/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)b

birb (plural birbs)

1. (Internet slang, childish, humorous) A bird, especially a small and cute one.

   Near-synonyms: birdie, birdlet, birdling

   • 2018 October 10, Emily Dreyfuss, “Glamour Duck and the Internet's Rabid Love of Wild Animals”, in WIRED‎^[1]:

     The here-then-gone-then-here-again appearance of the #birb (as Twitter loves to lovingly refer to pretty, pretty birdies) plus the internet’s instant oatmeal obsession with him inspired WIRED’s Paris Martineau to propose a different nickname for the fowl: duckboi

   • 2019 December 12, Asher Elbein, “When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide”, in Audubon:

     Violent or unseemly behavior doesn’t disqualify a bird from birbness: the aggression of hummingbirds […] and brain-eating of Great Tits are immaterial to their round fluffiness. You could post a picture of any of these on reddit under "murder birb" and nobody would blink.