Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Mockingbird |
MockingbirdNoun1. Long-tailed gray-and-white songbird of the southern United States able to mimic songs of other birds. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "mockingbird" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1843. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Mockingbird n. Software that intercepts communications (especially login transactions) between users and hosts and provides system-like responses to the users while saving their responses (especially account IDs and passwords). A special case of Trojan horse. Source: Jargon File. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Mockingbirds
Northern MockingbirdScientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Mimidae
Genera Melanotis
Mimodes
Mimus
Nesomimus
Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds best known for habit of mimicking the songs of other birds, often loudly in rapid succession.
Most species are tropical; the Northern Mockingbird is the species familiar throughout the United States and Canada. It is the state bird for several states of the USA.
There are 17 species in four genera.
Genus Melanotis
Genus Mimodes
- Blue Mockingbird Melanotis caerulescens
- Blue-and-white Mockingbird Melanotis hypoleucus
Genus Mimus
- Socorro Mockingbird Mimodes graysoni
Genus Nesomimus (Galápagos Islands)
- Brown-backed Mockingbird Mimus dorsalis
- Tropical Mockingbird Mimus gilvus
- Bahama Mockingbird Mimus gundlachii
- Long-tailed Mockingbird Mimus longicaudatus
- Large-billed Mockingbird Mimus magnirostris
- Patagonian Mockingbird Mimus patagonicus
- Northern Mockingbird Mimus polyglottis
- Chalk-browed Mockingbird Mimus saturninus
- Chilean Mockingbird Mimus thenca
- White-banded Mockingbird Mimus triuris
The Mockingbird is celebrated in a song of that name, by Barclay James Harvest.
- Española Mockingbird Nesomimus mcdonaldi
- San Cristóbal Mockingbird Nesomimus melanotis
- Galápagos Mockingbird Nesomimus parvulus
- Floreana Mockingbird Nesomimus trifasciatus (extremely rare)
See also:
- Article connecting Galapagos mockingbird species with mainland relatives
- Mimid
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Mockingbird."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Northern Mockingbird Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Mimidae Genus: Mimus Species: polyglottis Binomial name Mimus polyglottis The Northern Mockingbird, Mimus polyglottis, is the mockingbird commonly found in North America.
Adults are grey on the head and upperparts with pale yellow eyes and a slim black bill with a slight downward curve; the underparts are light. They have a long dark tail with white edges and long dark legs. They have white wing bars and show white wing patches in flight.
Their breeding habitat is areas with a mix of open areas and dense shrubs from southern Canada to Mexico, but is most common in the southern United States. They build a twig nest in a dense shrub or tree. This bird agressively defends its nest against other birds and animals.
They are generally permanent residents; northern birds may move south during harsh weather. However, this species has occurred in Europe as an extreme rarity.
These birds forage on the ground or in vegetation; they also fly down from a perch to capture food. They mainly eat insects and berries.
This bird imitates the songs of other birds, animal sounds and even machine noises. It is often found in urban areas.
This bird is the state bird of Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Northern Mockingbird."
Synonym: MockingbirdSynonym: mocker (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Mockingbird |
| English words defined with "mockingbird": blue mockingbird ♦ Melanotis caerulescens. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | And that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted, if I could hit 'em, but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. Well, I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy (To Kill a Mockingbird; writing credit: Harper Lee; Horton Foote) Well, it would be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it (To Kill a Mockingbird; writing credit: Harper Lee; Horton Foote) | |
Lyrics | And if that mockingbird don't sing (MOCKINGBIRD; performing artist: Carly Simon) He's gonna buy me a mockingbird (MOCKINGBIRD; performing artist: Carly Simon) She's gonna buy me a mockingbird (MOCKINGBIRD; performing artist: Carly Simon) | |
Movie/TV Titles | To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) | |
Song Titles | Mockingbird (performing artist: Inez and Charlie Foxx) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | USS Mockingbird (AMS-27) explodes an enemy mine in the Chinnampo area, off North Korea's Yellow Sea coast. Original photo is dated 3 March 1953. Credit: NAVY. |  | Four U.S. Navy minesweepers (AMS) tied up at Yokosuka, Japan, following mine clearance activities off Korea. Original photo is dated 30 November 1950. These four ships, all units of Mine Division 31, are (from left to right): USS Merganser (AMS-26); USS Osprey (AMS-28); USS Chatterer (AMS-40) and USS Mockingbird (AMS-27). Ship in the extreme left background is USS Wantuck (APD-125). Credit: NAVY. |
 | Photographed circa 1944-46. This ship became USS Mockingbird (AMS-27) in February 1947. Credit: NAVY. |  | Tending destroyers and patrol vessels at Sasebo, Japan. Photo is dated 14 December 1952. Ships nested along her port side include (left to right): USS The Sullivans (DD-537); USS McGowan (DD-678); USS Lewis Hancock (DD-675) and Korean frigate Imchin (# 66, ex USS Sausalito, PF-4) Nest of five minesweepers in the left distance includes: USS Heron (AMS-18); USS Curlew (AMS-8); USS Mockingbird (AMS-27); USS Gull (AMS-16) and USS Chatterer (AMS-40). Credit: NAVY. |
 | Crewman operates a winch on board USS Mockingbird (AMS-27) during mine clearance operations off Wonsan, North Korea. The ship's name is seen on a lifering mounted on the bulwark in the lower right. Original photo is dated 14 November 1950. Credit: NAVY. |  | Mockingbird. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
 | Mockingbird call. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | The buckeye does not grow in New England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Mockingbird" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 66.67% of the time. "Mockingbird" is used about 3 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 (proper) | 66.67% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (singular) | 33.33% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 3 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "mockingbird": blue mockingbird ♦ Mockingbird Valley. Additional references. | |
| 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 "mockingbird"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
German | Spottdrossel (catbird, mocker, mocking-bird, tease). (various references) | |
Hungarian | sokszavú poszáta (mocker, mocking-bird). (various references) | |
Italian | mimo (mime, mime (niet: mimicry)). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ockingbirdmay.(various references) | |
Russian | пересмешник (mocking-bird). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | američki drozd (catbird, mocking-bird). (various references) | |
Spanish | sinsonte. (various references) | |
Swedish | härmfågel. (various references) | |
Thai | นกอเมริกาลายสี"ำและขาว. (various references) | |
Turkish | alaycı kuş (catbird). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | пересмішник (mocker). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "mockingbird": mockingbirds. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "mockingbird" (pronounced mÄ"kingber'd) |
| 5 | -i ng b er' d | Hummingbird. |
| 4 | -ng b er' d | kingbird, songbird. |
| 3 | -b er' d | Bluebird, Catbird, ladybird, Firebird, redbird, shorebird, Snowbird, sunbird, Thunderbird. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-c-d-g-i-i-k-m-n-o-r" | |
-3 letters: bricking, bromidic, dominick, kingbird. | |
-4 letters: birding, broking, combing, cording, corking, crinoid, dirking, docking, dornick, gonidic, kingdom, midiron, mocking, ricking, rocking. | |
-5 letters: bicorn, bicron, biding, biking, bionic, boding, bodkin, boring, bromic, bromid, bromin, coding, coking, coming, congii, coring, dicing, diking, doming, dormin, gnomic, indigo, irking, ironic, micron, midrib, miking, mikron, miring, morbid, nimrod, niobic. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-c-d-g-i-i-k-m-n-o-r" | |
+1 letter: mockingbirds. | |
| 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. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
