chimney swallow
- noun
- /ˈʧɪmni ˈswɑloʊ/
:
golondrina de chimenea
- Every summer, a pair of chimney swallows returns to our house to raise their young.
Examples
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You can often see chimney swallows flying in graceful arcs as they hunt for insects.
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The chimney swallow is known for nesting in old buildings and chimneys.
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The world around me seemed so pregnant with wisdom back then, knowledge and ideas, philosophy and superstition hovering in the shape of a shadow, the flight of chimney swallows, the color of caterpillars, the blood spots in chicken eggs.
Fiction book (1993)
Synonyms
15
2.1
A small bird with long pointed wings and a forked tail that eats insects
1
3.7
A small bird with a long forked tail that builds nests in barns and on farms
A small bird with a long forked tail that builds mud nests on buildings
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun-noun compound simply denotes a swallow associated with chimneys (i.e., a swallow that nests or is found in chimneys), so its meaning is directly derivable from 'chimney' + 'swallow'. This is a transparent, compositional pattern common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the sense.
Etymology
Chimney swallow comes from the bird's habit of building nests inside a chimney or old barn. Because people often saw the quick swallow flying into these hollow places, the name now means 'a small bird that nests in chimneys'.