Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative spelling of
birdlime .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bird-lime.
Examples
-
You're right, it's a government run Ponzi scheme similar to the one Bernie Madarse is doing big bird-lime for, but much more extensive.
-
Thy father within approves this scheme; but there! he is powerless, getting all he can out of his liquor; his wings are snared by the cup as if he had flown against bird-lime, and he is fuddled; but thou art young and lusty; so save thyself with my help and regain thy old friend Dionysus, so little like the Cyclops.
The Cyclops 2008
-
The beach under foot is like pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is bird-lime.
Les Miserables 2008
-
Thy father within approves this scheme; but there! he is powerless, getting all he can out of his liquor; his wings are snared by the cup as if he had flown against bird-lime, and he is fuddled; but thou art young and lusty; so save thyself with my help and regain thy old friend Dionysus, so little like the Cyclops.
The Cyclops 2008
-
Credulous to the last degree, they are caught by the bird-lime of the simplest snare.
-
One may (one has) bought excellent readable editions (covered in dust and bird-lime, but who's finicky?) for a pittance.
-
It always chooses the highest points, and is caught on them with bird-lime, the long black tail-feathers being highly esteemed by the natives for plumes.
-
They catch birds by means of bird-lime made of gutta, by horse-hair nooses, and by imitating their call.
The Golden Chersonese and the way thither Isabella Lucy 2004
-
He was a victim, I think, of a movement where opinions stick men together, or keep them apart, like a kind of bird-lime, and without any relation to their natural likes and tastes, and where men of rich nature must give themselves up to an irritation which they no longer recognize because it is always present.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
-
He was a victim, I think, of a movement where opinions stick men together, or keep them apart, like a kind of bird-lime, and without any relation to their natural likes and tastes, and where men of rich nature must give themselves up to an irritation which they no longer recognize because it is always present.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
Gammerstang commented on the word bird-lime
(noun) - A glutinous substance extracted from the inner bark of the holly, used for catching birds. The bark is bruised, boiled with water till very soft, and placed in pits to ferment. After two or three weeks, a curious viscid mass is found in the place of the soft bark; this is boiled with a quantity of water and evaporated to a proper consistence. It is spread on twigs or wire netting. Birds are often drawn to the sticky perches by the treacherous singing of a decoy. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871
April 22, 2018