kingfisher

«kingfisher» in Mova's school dictionary: a small, brightly coloured bird with a big head and a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a kingfisher, kingfishers)

meaning for a pupil

1) A kingfisher is a small, brightly coloured bird with a big head and a long sharp beak that dives into water to catch fish. tree →

2) Some kingfishers, such as the Australian kookaburra, are large and catch lizards and insects on land. tree →

sense in the lessons

In nature lessons in the UK and Ireland, the common kingfisher is a bright blue and orange river bird; seeing one is a special sighting. In Australia and New Zealand, kookaburras and sacred kingfishers are kinds of kingfisher. Engineers in Japan copied the kingfisher's beak shape to make a quieter, faster bullet train (biomimicry). Phrases: «a flash of blue», «kingfisher blue».

examples

• A kingfisher dived into the river and caught a fish. tree →
• We saw a flash of blue — a kingfisher! tree →
• The kookaburra is a big kingfisher. tree →
• Kingfishers nest in tunnels in riverbanks. tree →
• The bullet train's nose was copied from a kingfisher's beak. tree →
• Kingfishers need clean rivers with lots of small fish. tree →

note

Countable; one word. A kingfisher is not related to kings; the name means it is a very good «fisher».

In the corpora

• Kingfishers plunge in beak first, and Japan's bullet train was given a kingfisher-shaped nose to make it quieter.
• African pygmy kingfishers are tiny kingfishers that mostly hunt insects in woods, not fish in rivers.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «kingfisher» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.