beaky

beaky

English

Etymology

beak +‎ -y

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbiːki/

Adjective

beaky (comparative beakier, superlative beakiest)

1. Beaked: having a beak.
   • 2011, The Telegraph, 30 June, 2011,

     Jim Carrey tells John Hiscock about his beaky new co-stars in 'Mr Popper's Penguins' and how he made it big.

2. Beak-like: resembling a beak.
   • 1718, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book XV”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume IV, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], OCLC 670734254:

     […] Hector thunder'd threats aloud,
     And rush'd enraged before the Trojan crowd;
     Then swift invades the ships, whose beaky prores
     Lay rank'd contiguous on the bending shores;

   • 1972, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, August 1914 (1971), translated by H. T. Willetts, Chapter 25, p. 238,

     […] he emerged from the signals room with his drooping mustache, his beaky nose, his stupid, staring eyes […]

3. Having a nose which resembles a beak.
   • 1936, L. M. Montgomery, chapter 15, in Anne of Windy Poplars‎:

     " […] You haven't a nose like mine. I'll be as beaky as Father in ten more years. […] "

   • 1964, William Trevor, The Old Boys, in Three Early Novels, Penguin, 2000, Chapter 3, p. 22,

     The two men, who for more than sixty years had never been very much out of touch, were quite similar in appearance: spare of form, with beaky, weathered faces and strands of whitening hair.

4. (of a gesture) Made using a beak; (of a sound) produced through a beak.
   • 1929, D. H. Lawrence, The Escaped Cock, published as The Man Who Died, London: Heinemann, 1931, pp. 34-35,

     And always the man who had died saw not the bird alone, but the short, sharp wave of life of which the bird was the crest. He watched the queer, beaky motion of the creature as it gobbled into itself the scraps of food; its glancing of the eye of life, ever alert and watchful […]

   • 1942, Emily Carr, “The Cow Yard”, in The Book of Small:

     If you put your hand on [the hens], they flattened their feathers to their bodies and their bodies down on their eggs and gave beaky growls.

Synonyms

• beaked, rostrate, rostrated, rostellate

See also

• sneaky beaky