blackcap

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small Eurasian warbler, Sylvia atricapilla, whose adult male has a black crown

   The male blackcap arrived before the female and sang from a dense hedge.

2. 2
   noun

   any of several other birds with a black crown, especially the black-capped chickadee

   A blackcap carried a sunflower seed away from the feeder.

3. 3
   noun

   a black raspberry or its fruit

   She gathered ripe blackcaps from the edge of the field.

A compound of black + cap, first recorded in the seventeenth century. The principal British bird sense refers to the male warbler's black crown; the same visual name was extended to other black-crowned birds and to the dark fruit of the black raspberry.

Topics