Wagtail

Definition: Wagtail

Wagtail

Noun

1. Old World bird having a very long tail that jerks up and down as it walks.

Date "wagtail" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1605. (references)

Domain	Definitions
Dream Interpretation	To see a wagtail in a dream, foretells that you will be the victim of unpleasant gossip, and your affairs will develop unmistakable loss. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted ....
Slang in 1811	WAGTAIL. A lewd woman. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Wagtails

African Pied Wagtail

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family†:	Motacillidae

Genera
Dendronanthus Motacilla

† see also: pipit, longclaw

The wagtails are a group of small passerine birds with long tails which they wag frequently.

"Motacilla", the root of the family and main generic name, means “moving tail”. They are in the same family as the pipits and longclaws.

They are slender, often colourful, ground-feeding insectivores of open country in the Old World. Wagtails are ground nesters, laying up to six speckled eggs.

There are eleven species, all but one in Motacilla.

Genus Dendronanthus

Forest Wagtail Dendronanthus indicus

Genus Motacilla

Citrine Wagtail Motacilla citreola
Japanese Wagtail Motacilla grandis
White-browed Wagtail Motacilla madaraspratensis
African pied Wagtail Motacilla aguimp
Mountain Wagtail Motacilla clara
Cape Wagtail Motacilla capensis
Madagascar Wagtail Motacilla flaviventris
White Wagtail Motacilla alba. Two races
- Motacilla alba alba
- Motacilla alba yarrelli, the Pied wagtail.
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Blue-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava. several races differing in head colour.

The Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys) of Australia is unrelated.

Crosswords: Wagtail

English words defined with "wagtail": Coldfinch ♦ Field wagtail ♦ Garden wagtail ♦ Motacil ♦ Pied wagtail ♦ Quaketail ♦ Waggie, Wagtail flycatcher, Water wagtail, Waterie, White wagtail, Winter wagtail, Wood wagtail. (references)

Specialty definitions using "wagtail": Wagtail. (references)

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Mrs. Wagtail was so happy that she sang all the time.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who passed quickly from one action to another, had picked up a stone.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Wagtail" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Wagtail" is used about 27 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	27	66,962

Expressions using "wagtail": Field wagtail ♦ Garden wagtail ♦ pied wagtail ♦ wagtail flycatcher ♦ water wagtail ♦ white wagtail ♦ winter wagtail ♦ wood wagtail ♦ yellow wagtail. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "wagtail": wagtail-like.
	Containing "wagtail": yellow-wagtail-like.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "wagtail"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		bishtlëkundës. (various references)

Arabic		‏الذعرة طائر. (various references)

Bulgarian		стърчиопашка (dishwasher). (various references)

Chinese		�' (lark). (various references)

Czech		třasořitka, konipas. (various references)

Danish		sortrygget vipstjert (pied wagtail), Nordlig gul vipstjert (grey-headed wagtail), kaukasisk gul vipstjert (black-headed wagtail), italiensk gul vipstjert (ashy-headed wagtail), hvid vipstjert (white wagtail), gulhovedet vipstjert (yellow wagtail), bjergvipstjert (grey wagtail), almindelig gul vipstjert (blue-headed wagtail, yellow wagtail). (various references)

Dutch		witte kwikstaart (white wagtail), zwartkop-gele kwikstaart (black-headed wagtail), rouwkwikstaart (pied wagtail), Noordse gele kwikstaart (grey-headed wagtail), grote gele kwikstaart (grey wagtail), gele kwikstaart (blue-headed wagtail, yellow wagtail), engelse gele kwikstaart (yellow wagtail), citroenkwikstaart (citrine wagtail). (various references)

Finnish		västäräkki. (various references)

French		hoche-queue, bergeronnette. (various references)

German		Bachstelze (pied wagtail, white wagtail). (various references)

Greek		σεισοπυγίσ, σεισουράδα, σουσουράδα (minx). (various references)

Hungarian		barázdabillegetõ. (various references)

Italian		ballerina (ballerina, dancer, flattie). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		鶺�' . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		せきれい. (various references)

Manx		ushag vreck, skibbag ny mulleeyn (grey wagtail), glassag (rampart, shore crab). (various references)

Pig Latin		agtailway

Portuguese		lavandisca, alvéola. (various references)

Romanian		codobaturã. (various references)

Russian		трясогузка. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		pastirica. (various references)

Spanish		aguzanieves. (various references)

Swedish		vippstjärt, ärla. (various references)

Turkish		sarı kuyruksallayan. (various references)

Ukranian		трясогузка, повія (baggage, bawd, call girl, cat, chippy, harlot, jilt, quean, streetwalker, strumpet, trollop, unfortunate, whore, witch). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	Motacilla alba, Motacilla alba alba, Motacilla alba yarrellii, Motacilla cinerea, Motacilla citreola, Motacilla flava, Motacilla flava cinereocapilla, Motacilla flava feldegg, Motacilla flava flava, Motacilla flava flavissima, Motacilla flava thunbergi, RM:ballacua citronella, RM:ballacua da muntogna, RM:ballacua da pastgira, RM:ballacua grischa. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "wagtail": wagtails. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Wagtail" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Sagatal, wartail. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-g-i-l-t-w"
	-2 letters: await, taiga.
	-3 letters: alga, alit, gait, gala, gilt, glia, lati, tail, tala, tali, twig, wail, wait, wilt.
	-4 letters: aal, aga, ail, ait, ala, alt, awa, awl, gal, gat, git, lag, lat, law, lit, tag, taw, til, twa, wag, wat, wig, wit.
	-5 letters: aa, ag, ai, al, at, aw, it, la, li, ta, ti.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-g-i-l-t-w"
	+1 letter: wagtails.
	+4 letters: antiwhaling.
	+5 letters: caterwauling, mulligatawny.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.