magpie

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Someone who displays a magpie-like quality such as hoarding or stealing objects.

   Not only is Mr. Booker a voracious magpie (who does not always acknowledge the sources of his ideas), but he also turns out to be an annoyingly biased and didactic one.

2. 2
   noun

   A pattern resembling the pied plumage of a magpie.

   Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed “magpie” Jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything.

3. 3
   verb

   To mark with patches of black and white or light and dark.

   The little rail-enclosed plots that lay between the pavements and the hotels were magpied with torn paper […]

4. 4
   verb

   To steal or hoard (items) as magpies are believed to do.

   […] she liked to be able to have a picturesque fact or two with which to support herself when she too, to hold attention, wanted to issue moving statements as to revolutions, anarchies and strife in the offing. And she had noticed that when she magpied Tietjens’ conversations more serious men in responsible positions were apt to argue with her and to pay her more attention than before....

5. 5
   verb

   To talk idly; to talk about other people's private business.

   He knew how people were magpieing with their malicious chatter that she had committed the cardinal sin of believing love was permanent […]

6. 6
   noun

   long-tailed black-and-white crow that utters a raucous chattering call

7. 7
   noun

   an obnoxious and foolish and loquacious talker

8. 8
   noun

   someone who collects things that have been discarded by others

Etymology

From Mag, a nickname for Margaret that was used to denote a chatterer, + archaic pie (“magpie”), from Middle English pie, pye, from Old French pie, from Latin pīca, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peyk- (“woodpecker, magpie”). Displaced native Old English agu (“magpie”) and Middle English aguster (“magpie”), whence English haggister.