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bittern

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
bit·tern 1  (btrn)
n.
Any of several wading birds of the genera Botaurus and Ixobrychus, having mottled brownish plumage and a deep booming cry in the male.

[Alteration (perhaps influenced by tern1) of Middle English bitour, from Old French butor, possibly from Vulgar Latin *buti-taurus : Latin bti, buzzard + Latin taurus, bull (after its cry); see tauro- in Indo-European roots.]

bittern
Noun
a large wading marsh bird with a booming call [Old French butor]
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.bitternbittern - relatively small compact tawny-brown heron with nocturnal habits and a booming cry; found in marshes
heron - grey or white wading bird with long neck and long legs and (usually) long bill
Ixobrychus exilis, least bittern - small American bittern


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
When they went once more into the long hall with the windows and the mirrors, yellow evening was dropping over the waters and the willowy banks; and a bittern sounded in the distance like an elf upon his dwarfish drum.
It was a common sound in those parts--as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.
We need the tonic of wildness -- to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.
 
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