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Glite Dictionary
🐦 A ground-nesting bird 🐦 A clay-nest bird
ovenbird

ovenbird

1 9.4
A small North American songbird that builds a dome-shaped nest on the ground
  • noun
  • /ˈʌvənˌbɜrd/
  • US
: hornero
  • Cerulean Warbler, Ovenbird, Lincoln Sparrow, a furious Ruby—

Examples

  • It beats at the same time as an ovenbird on the guardrail who is picking at an itch underneath her wing.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • One might ask, with Robert Frost's ovenbird (a frequent winter resident in Florida scrub), what to make of a diminished thing.

    Academic text (1993)

  • The ovenbird builds its dome-shaped nest on the ground in dense underbrush.

  • We spotted an ovenbird hopping across the forest floor, searching for insects.

  • In spring, the ovenbird's distinct song can be heard echoing through the wooded areas.

Synonyms

Seiurus aurocapillus
vsovenbird
  • Specialized
9.9

Small North American songbird called the ovenbird that builds a dome-shaped nest on the ground

is the common English name rather than the formal Latin term

Surface Forms

ovenbird singular
ovenbirds plural

Morphology

ovenbird = oven + bird (semi-transparent) = oven + bird

The form 'oven' + 'bird' clearly signals a bird associated with oven-like nests, but the specific species-level meaning is specialized.

Etymology

Ovenbird comes from the English word oven, meaning 'a baking oven', because the North American warbler makes a hidden, dome-shaped nest on the ground that looks like a tiny oven, so its name refers to that oven-like nest.