Ostrich
['ɒstrɪtʃ] or ['ɔstrɪtʃ]
Definition
(noun.) fast-running African flightless bird with two-toed feet; largest living bird.
(noun.) a person who refuses to face reality or recognize the truth (a reference to the popular notion that the ostrich hides from danger by burying its head in the sand).
Typed by Duane--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A large bird of the genus Struthio, of which Struthio camelus of Africa is the best known species. It has long and very strong legs, adapted for rapid running; only two toes; a long neck, nearly bare of feathers; and short wings incapable of flight. The adult male is about eight feet high.
Inputed by Hubert
Definition
n. the largest of birds found in Africa remarkable for its speed in running and prized for its feathers.—n. Os′trich-farm a place where ostriches are bred and reared for their feathers.
Typist: Vivienne
Unserious Contents or Definition
To dream of an ostrich, denotes that you will secretly amass wealth, but at the same time maintain degrading intrigues with women. To catch one, your resources will enable you to enjoy travel and extensive knowledge.
Typist: Nora
Unserious Contents or Definition
n. A large bird to which (for its sins doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect for as has been ingeniously pointed out the ostrich does not fly.
Checked by Clarice
Unserious Contents or Definition
The largest and heaviest bird on earth, yet rated by his owners only as a featherweight.
Typist: Shelley
Examples
- She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- That is a beautiful plume of white ostrich-feathers in your bonnet. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- You wore a costume of dove-colored silk with ostrich-feather trimming. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
- This incubator will hatch chicks, ducks, turkeys, or guineas, and we see no reason why it should not hatch the egg of the ostrich or anything else as well. William K. David. Secrets of Wise Men, Chemists and Great Physicians.
- How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- One writer asks, why has not the ostrich acquired the power of flight? Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- Social life has nothing whatever to fear from group interests so long as it doesn't try to play the ostrich in regard to them. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- This habit is not very uncommon with the Gallinaceae, and throws some light on the singular instinct of the ostrich. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- The condor lays a couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- Then ostriches disguised as judges cannot deal with them. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- Two or three months before this he had ocular proof of the effect of a hailstorm, which in a very limited area killed twenty deer, fifteen ostriches, numbers of ducks, hawks, and partridges. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge their heads! Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
Inputed by Elizabeth