chaffinch: [OE] Etymologically, a chaffinch is a finch which gets its food by pecking amongst the chaff and other grain debris in the barnyard. The word chaff itself (Old English ceaf) probably goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *kaf-, *kef- ‘chew’, which was also the source of chafer ‘beetle’ [OE] (literally the ‘chewing creature’) and jowl. (The verb chaff ‘make fun of’ [19], on the other hand, is probably an alteration of chafe, which came via Old French chaufer and Vulgar Latin *califāre from Latin calefacere ‘make warm’, a relative of English cauldron and calorie.) => chafer, jowl
Fringilla cælebs, Old English ceaffinc, literally "chaff-finch," so called for its habit of eating waste grain among the chaff on farms. See chaff + finch.
双语例句
1. Thorpe next set out to determine exactly when the chaffinch learns to sing.
接着,索普就开始研究苍头燕雀是在什么时候学唱歌的.
来自辞典例句
2. Thorpe also showed that the chaffinch is selective in what it will imitate.
索普还证明,苍头燕雀学歌是有所选择的.
来自辞典例句
3. The chaffinch has three or four songs and produces them in a specific order.
