dawn chorus
/dɔn ˈkɔɹəs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.75 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "But the music of the spring-tide is past; the cuckoo is no longer vocal; the dawn-chorus is silent; summer has stilled the voices that but lately trilled so tirelessly, and, until another spring arrives, hedgerow and spinney will not again resound with the singing of the birds."
- "[I]t was a poor woodcock year in the South of England; that young starlings were nearly fledged on the 25h January 1913; that the dawn choruses in March and up to the 10th April were very short, five to ten minutes only; the killing East and South wind and bitter cold effectually preventing, and generally that song was short and weak."
- "Woodland Birds takes one through the year in our broad-leafed woodlands and many of the very well-known voices of the habitat are beautifully recorded, the dawn choruses of the various spring months being exceptionally interesting."
- "[T]he hadada is a sort of ibis – a large brown bird with long legs, a long curved beak and a loud voice. Hadadas roost in numbers among the trees in the leafier parts of Nairobi and their eponymous call is one of the more insistent elements of the dawn chorus in that part of the world, though they may be heard at any time of the day."
- "Staying just under a mile from Gillingham station, I was up before the dawn chorus and parked at the station car park (£5.20 all day) in time for that 0456."
- "[T]he dawn chorus usually has a characteristic chirpy sound, but at times changes into a hiss not unlike tube noise. […] Several investigators, including the author, have at times noticed a tendency for the dawn chorus to change intensity for a short period immediately following some lightning strokes. This may indicate a change in propagation conditions due to the electromagnetic or ionization effect of the strokes."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
- Root: *dʰegʷʰ-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dɔn ˈkɔɹəs/
- British English: /dɔːn ˈkɔːɹəs/