hummingbird

IPA/ˈhʌmɪŋbɜːd/
KK[hˈʌmɪŋbˌɚd]IPA/ˈhʌmɪŋbɜːrd/

hummingbird — noun

  • hummingbirdsingular
  • hummingbirdsplural

1. a very small bird with bright, shiny feathers, a long thin beak, and wings that

1.nounB1
Definition

a very small bird with bright, shiny feathers, a long thin beak, and wings that beat so fast they produce a soft buzzing sound; found mainly in warm parts of North and South America, where it feeds on the sweet liquid inside flowers by hovering in front of them without landing

Example

Camille watched a hummingbird hover outside her kitchen window, its wings a blur.

hover + outside + kitchen window — typical setting

Every spring, Tomás plants bright red flowers to attract hummingbirds to his garden.

attract hummingbirds + bright red flowers — typical collocation

Common collocations
  • a hummingbird hovers
  • a hummingbird sips nectar
  • a hummingbird beats its wings
  • attract hummingbirds
  • hummingbird feeder
  • brightly coloured hummingbird
  • tiny hummingbird
Synonyms
  • hummer

    informal, used mainly in US conversation or nature writing

Grammar Patterns

a/the hummingbird

hummingbirds (plural)

Usage Note

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards. The word comes from the humming sound their wings make. In Taiwan, hummingbirds do not occur naturally and are mainly known through nature documentaries and pictures.

Common Mistakes

A hummingbird is a kind of bee that makes a humming sound.
A hummingbird is a tiny bird, not an insect. The humming sound comes from its fast-beating wings.
learners sometimes confuse the name with an insect because of the 'humming' sound.

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Hummingbird is the standard English name for any bird of the family Trochilidae, known for its small size, iridescent feathers, and ability to hover. The informal shortening hummer appears in casual US speech and birdwatching blogs but is too informal for academic writing. The swift is a different bird family (Apodidae) — swifts are larger, fly faster, cannot hover, and lack the long thin beak that hummingbirds use to reach nectar. A quick way to tell them apart: if the bird is hovering in front of a flower, it is a hummingbird; if it is racing through the sky in a curved path, it is probably a swift.

hummingbird ↗hummer ↗swift ↗

Etymology

GreekEnglish

The name 'hummingbird' was first recorded in English in the 1600s. It combines 'humming' (referring to the buzzing sound of the bird's fast-beating wings) with 'bird'. Early European explorers in the Americas noticed the sound before they could see the tiny bird clearly. The scientific family name Trochilidae comes from the Greek word 'trokhilos', a name the ancient Greeks used for a small unidentified bird.

First known use

1637

1637, in the meaning defined above