Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small European songbird (Fringilla coelebs) having reddish-brown plumage and a blue-gray cap in the male.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A common European bird of the genus Fringilla, F. cœlebs, whose pleasant short and oft-repeated song is heard from early spring to the middle of summer.
  • noun A name of the Australian birds of the genus Chloëbia, as C. gouldiæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A bird of Europe (Fringilla cœlebs), having a variety of very sweet songs, and highly valued as a cage bird; -- called also copper finch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small passerine bird, Fringilla coelebs, of the finch family.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun small European finch with a cheerful song

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chaffinche, from Old English ceaffinc : ceaf, chaff, husk + finc, finch.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From chaff + finch.

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