starling

From Middle English starling, sterling, sterlinge, from Old English stærling, from stær (“starling”) + -ling (diminutive suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch sterlinck (“starling”).

• enPR: stär′lĭng
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈstɑɹ.lɪŋ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɑː.lɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)lɪŋ

starling (plural starlings)

1. A family, Sturnidae, of passerine birds.
   1. The common starling, Sturnus vulgaris, which has dark, iridescent plumage.

      Synonyms: European starling, (archaic, dialectal) stare

      • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501:

        Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.

2. (hydraulic engineering) An inclosure like a coffer-dam, formed of piles driven closely together, before any work or structure as a protection against the wash of the waves, commonly used to protects the piers of a bridge.
3. One of the piles used in forming such a breakwater.
4. A fish, rock trout (Hexagrammos spp.), of the North Pacific, especially, Hexagrammos decagrammus, found in US waters.

   Synonyms: boregat, bodieron

• common starling, European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
• New Zealand starling
• pied starling
• rose-colored starling, rose-coloured starling
• rosy starling (Pastor roseus)
• spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor)

• “starling”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “starling”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC, page 5908, column 1.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “starling”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volume V, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 5908, column 1.
• “starling”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Starling (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• starling on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Sturnidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Hexagrammos on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Sturnidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Hexagrammos on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

• ratlings