zvirbulis

• (dialectal forms) zvirbuls, zvirblis, žīgurs, žvīgurs, žvingurs

From Proto-Indo-European *werb-, *werp- ( +‎ -ulis; compare also vērpt (“to spin”)), from *wer- (“to turn, to twist, to bend”) (with an extra suffix -p, -b). The original meaning was a bird that turns and moves all the time. The initial z is either from an s-mobile, or the influence of some other term for this bird species (e.g., dialectal žīgurs, žvīgurs, žvingurs, apparently from the same stem as zviegt (“to neigh, to whinny”), q.v.). Cognates include Lithuanian žvi̇̀rblis, Old Church Slavonic врабии (vrabii), Russian воробе́й (vorobéj), Bulgarian врабе́ц (vrabéc), Czech vrabec, Polish wróbel.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [zvīɾbulis]

• Audio:

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zvirbulis m (2nd declension)

1. sparrow (a number of bird species of the order Passeriformes, genus Passer)

   mājas zvirbulis ― house sparrow (Passer domesticus)

• zvirbulēns
• zvirbuliene