red-tailed hawk
2
5.5
- noun
- /ˈrɛdˌteɪld hɔk/
- US
:
halcón de cola roja
- Bald eagles and red-tailed hawks soar overhead; ravens croak; a great horned owl hangs out in our woods.
- red-tailed hawks and kestrels
Examples
-
About 10 percent are golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, and burrowing owls, the latter a California species of special concern.
Academic text (2008) -
Tommy is the one who notices the red-tailed hawk as it swoops over our house—and he knows the difference between a hawk and a falcon.
Blog text (21) -
Others are more familiar, like the red-tailed hawk.
Academic text (2002) -
A red-tailed hawk came down and sat on his wrist.
Fiction book (2002) -
Check out the red-tailed hawks perched along highways.
Blog text (28) -
Swoop, a red-tailed hawk, became the official mascot in 1996.
Blog text (16) -
A red-tailed hawk swoops over a road, a furry brown morsel in its beak.
Blog text (29) -
This morning, my hubby said that the brazen red-tailed hawk was sitting on the chain-link fence that serves as our chicken run, in broad daylight and right next to the house.
Blog text (34) -
We put out seed and water, and birds flocked: gnatcatchers, hummingbirds, red-tailed hawks, crows, and brilliantly hued mountain bluebirds.
Fiction book (1994) -
While hiking through the park, I spotted a majestic red-tailed hawk perched on a tree branch.
Synonyms
69
2.3
A bird with sharp eyes, short wings, and a long tail that hunts by day
A large North American hawk with a reddish-brown tail and broad wings
A large North American hawk with dark brown feathers and a reddish tail that hunts small animals
Surface Forms
Morphology
red-tailed + hawk
The meaning 'a hawk with a reddish-brown tail' is directly derivable from combining 'red-tailed' (having a red tail) with 'hawk' (a bird of prey). The adjectival past-participle/compound + noun pattern is a regular, compositional structure found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings would readily understand it.
Etymology
Red-tailed hawk is named for the bird's red tail that you can easily see when it flies over open land. That's why the name means 'a large hawk with a reddish tail'.