redstart

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   any of several small Old World insect-eating birds, especially members of the genus Phoenicurus, with conspicuous reddish tails

   The common redstart repeatedly flicked its orange-red tail from a low branch.

2. 2
   noun

   the American redstart, Setophaga ruticilla, a New World warbler whose male is black with orange patches

   The young American redstart bred before acquiring the full plumage of an adult male.

Inherited from Middle English redstert, formed from red + start, an old word for 'tail.' Old World redstarts and the distantly related American redstart were independently given the name because of their reddish tail plumage.

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