chickadee

chickadee

English

Black-capped chickadee

Etymology

Apparent onomatopoeia from these birds' calls making a distinctive “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” sound.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃɪ.kəˌdi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

chickadee (plural chickadees)

1. A small passerine bird (songbird) of the genus Parus or the family Paridae.

   Synonyms: tit, titmouse

   • 1904, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Fragments on Nature and Life”, in Poems:

     In Walden wood the chickadee / Runs round the pine and maple tree

2. Affectionate term of address.

Derived terms

• Acadian chickadee
• black-capped chickadee
• boreal chickadee
• Carolina chickadee
• chestnut-backed chickadee
• grey-headed chickadee
• Mexican chickadee
• mountain chickadee

 

Translations

songbird

Afrikaans: mees (af) Albanian: trishtil (sq) m, tringec (sq) m, cinkë (sq) f Armenian: երաշտահավ (hy) (eraštahav) Belarusian: сіні́ца f (siníca), гіль m (hilʹ) Bulgarian: сини́гер (bg) m (siníger) Catalan: mallerenga (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 山雀 (zh) (shānquè) Czech: sýkora (cs) f, sýkorka f Danish: mejse (da) c Dutch: mees (nl) f Esperanto: paruo (eo) Estonian: tihane (et) Faroese: títa f Finnish: tiainen (fi) (family Paridae); talitiainen (fi) (genus Parus) French: mésange (fr) f Galician: meixengra f German: Meise (de) f Greek: παπαδίτσα (el) f (papadítsa) Hungarian: cinege (hu), cinke (hu) Irish: méantán m Italian: cincia (it) f Japanese: 四十雀 (ja) (しじゅうから, shijūkara), シジュウカラ (ja) (shijūkara) Latin: parus Lithuanian: zylė (lt) f Low German: Mees’ f, Meesch f Luxembourgish: Mees f Lutshootseed: c̓əlc̓əlkayus Macedonian: сипка f (sipka), сенка f (senka) Mohawk: tsiktsiré:re Navajo: chʼíshiibeezhii Norwegian: meis (no) m Panamint: annakki Polish: sikora (pl) f Portuguese: chapim (pt) m Romanian: pițigoi (ro) m Romansch: maset m Russian: сини́ца (ru) f (siníca), га́ичка (ru) f (gáička) Sami: Skolt Sami: ceeʒʒaž Scottish Gaelic: cailleachag f, currac-baintighearna f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: сеница f, сјеница f Roman: senica (sh) f, sjenica (sh) f Sicilian: cacasipala (scn) f Slovak: sýkorka (sk) f Slovene: sinica (sl) f Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: sykora, sykorka Upper Sorbian: sykorka, sykora Spanish: carbonero (es) m Swedish: mes (sv) c, tita (sv) c Ukrainian: сини́ця f (synýcja) Volapük: parud (vo) Walloon: mazindje (wa) f West Frisian: mies

Further reading

• chickadee on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “chickadee”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.