water ouzel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a dipper: any of the small aquatic songbirds of the genus Cinclus (family Cinclidae) that wade and dive in swift streams, especially the white-throated dipper in Eurasia or the American dipper in North America

   The water ouzel plunged into the mountain stream and searched beneath the stones for insect larvae.

A compound of water and ouzel. Ouzel comes from Middle English osel and Old English ōsle, originally a name for the Eurasian blackbird and cognate with German Amsel. Water ouzel is recorded in English from 1622 and became a vernacular name for the stream-diving birds now usually called dippers; water ousel is a variant spelling.

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