white pelican
1
3.2
- noun
- /waɪt ˈpɛlɪkən/
- US
:
pelícano blanco
- The white pelicans were working the swamp in tight formations, minding only their own business.
Examples
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The white pelicans are also interesting to watch.
Blog text (34) -
Spoonbills feed from the water's surface like the white pelicans.
Academic text (2006) -
Those that leave for the south, such as white pelicans and most of the region's great blue herons, do so by about October.
Academic text (1991) -
Outside of Cedar Key, there are white pelicans that hunt differently than the diving brown ones.
Blog text (34) -
It is one of the last remaining nesting sites for white pelicans and contains fish species endemic to the western arid regions of the United States.
Academic text (1996) -
One of the main features of this lake is the hundreds of white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) that stand between 60 and 70 inches tall and nest on top of dead tree stumps along the shorelines.
Academic text (2003) -
You can often observe white pelicans gracefully gliding over the water while searching for fish.
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The large flock of white pelicans gathered on the lake, their distinctive plumage visible from afar.
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In spring, many white pelicans migrate to North America to breed along the coastlines.
Synonyms
A large white bird with black wing feathers and a long beak that eats fish
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a pelican with white plumage' is directly and compositionally derived from 'white' (a color) + 'pelican' (a bird), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the phrase. This adjective+noun pattern is a common, cross-linguistic compositional structure in English, making the expression straightforward and transparent.
Etymology
White pelican comes from the bird's look: it is a large pelican with bright white feathers and dark wing tips, so people named it for those clear parts. That's why white pelican means 'a large species of pelican with white plumage'.