spoonbill

English

Etymology

From spoon +‎ bill, owing to the shape of the animal's beak.

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈspunˌbɪl/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Noun

spoonbill (plural spoonbills)

  1. Any of various large, long-legged wading birds of the genus Platalea, in the ibis family Threskiornithidae, that have a large, flat, spatulate bill.
  2. (US) A species of fish, Polyodon spathula, native to the river basins of Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri, or its extinct close relatives.
    Synonym: paddlefish

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.