Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In ornithology, having a spoon-like or spatulate bill, dilated at the end. See
spoonbill . - In ichthyology, duck-billed; shovel-nosed; having a long spatulate snout, as a sturgeon. See cuts under
paddle-fish and Psephurus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Having the bill expanded and spatulate at the end.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Deep within my roseate spoon-billed heart lies a melody.
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For two of the three water-bird species that are considered globally threatened, namely the red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis) and the spoon-billed sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmaeus), 67 and 57% of their current breeding range is projected to change from tundra to forest, respectively (Table 7.7).
Recent and projected changes in arctic species distributions and potential ranges 2009
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The singular spoon-billed sandpiper was at one time in spring so common that it was twice served at the gunroom table, for which after our return home we had to endure severe reproaches from animal collectors.
The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II Alexander Leslie 1866
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Experts fear that, without intervention, the spoon-billed sandpiper could be extinct within ten years.
BBC News - Home 2011
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No spoon-billed sandpipers currently exist in captivity.
BBC News - Home 2011
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His women quaintly in a constant condition of erotic endeavour, have questing, almost prehensile vaginas resembling nothing so much as a whiskered spoon-billed duck; the phallus is bloated, misshapen, floating free; inflated breasts, detached limbs and eyes on stalks, extruded nipples and scrotums stretched by the weight of testicles accompany the rima seen as a great engulfing orifice.
Evening Standard - Home Brian Sewell 2011
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There have been more Google hits for the exotic and endangered spoon-billed sandpiper from Asia than for any threatened British creature.
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Dr Geoff Hilton Head of Species Research, WWT The captive population of spoon-billed sandpipers will be housed in Moscow Zoo for quarantine purposes, then moved to a specially built unit at the headquarters of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust WWT in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, UK.
BBC News - Home 2011
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Conservationists have embarked on a mission to save one the world's rarest birds, the spoon-billed sandpiper, from extinction.
BBC News - Home 2011
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Print Bid to save sandpiper at risk of extinction in Russia Will this spoon-billed sandpiper chick make it to adulthood?
BBC News - Home 2011
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