Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A duck of either of the genera Tadorna and Casarca.
- noun The shoveler-duck, Spatula clypeata, whose variegated plumage somewhat resembles that of the sheldrake.
- noun A merganser or goosander; especially, the red-breasted merganser, also called
shelduck . - noun The canvasback duck.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of large Old World ducks of the genus Tadorna and allied genera, especially the European and Asiatic species. (
Tadorna cornuta syn.Tadorna tadorna ), which somewhat resembles a goose in form and habit, but breeds in burrows. - noun Any one of the American mergansers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An Old World
duck of the genusTadorna . - noun A
merganser . - noun A
male shelduck .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun large crested fish-eating diving duck having a slender hooked bill with serrated edges
- noun Old World gooselike duck slightly larger than a mallard with variegated mostly black-and-white plumage and a red bill
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A subspecies of the critically endangered crested shelduck, called Kuroda's sheldrake Tadorna cristata kuroda, once occurred along the southern coast of Korea.
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Or that I can dive down at one side of a Highland loch and come up at the other like a sheldrake?
Red Cap Tales Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North Samuel Rutherford Crockett
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The sheldrake ducks also have a fleshy growth on the bill.
The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919
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It was Deep-water Peter, holding a gun in one hand, and a dead sheldrake in the other.
The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various 1915
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Sometimes, when fishing alongshore with my Indian at the paddle, the canoe would push its nose silently around a point, and I would see the heron's heavy slanting flight already halfway up to the tree-tops, long before our coming had been suspected by the watchful little mother sheldrake, or even by the deer feeding close at hand among the lily pads.
Wood Folk at School William Joseph Long 1909
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In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking silently;
American Feuillage 1900
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Then her soul took the form of a sheldrake and its mate – those loving birds which, like the turtle-dove, are always constant, – and floating on the liquid pools, they mourned all day long the sad fate of the Princess Pepperina.
Tales of the Punjab 1894
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-- The _chakwâ_, male, and _chakwî_, female, is the ruddy goose or sheldrake, known to Europeans as the Brâhmanî duck, _Anas casarca_ or _Casarca rutila_.
Tales of the Punjab Flora Annie Steel 1888
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Then her soul took the form of a sheldrake and its mate, -- those loving birds which, like the turtle-dove, are always constant, -- and floating on the liquid pools, they mourned all day long the sad fate of the Princess Pepperina.
Tales of the Punjab Flora Annie Steel 1888
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Midsummer Day I saw a sheldrake (probably an escaped bird) flying down the river, looking very splendid in its black, white, and red plumage, in the bright light of the morning.
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