plantain-eater

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a fruit-eating African bird of the turaco family Musophagidae; now especially either of the grey plantain-eaters in the genus Crinifer

   The western plantain-eater crossed the clearing with slow wingbeats and a flash of its long grey tail.

A compound of plantain + eater, recorded from around the beginning of the nineteenth century. The common name arose from the mistaken belief that these African turacos fed chiefly on plantains or bananas; nineteenth-century writers also used plantain-eaters broadly for the family Musophagidae.

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