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Birds "of a feather" (in this case red-winged blackbirds) exhibiting flocking behavior, source of the idiom. Birds of a feather flock together is an English proverb. The meaning is that beings (typically humans) of similar type, interest, personality, character, or other distinctive attribute tend to mutually associate.
A proverbial phrase or expression is a type of conventional saying similar to a proverb and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. [1] [2] In 1768, John Ray defined a proverbial phrase as:
Pages in category "Metaphors referring to birds" The following 38 pages are in this category, out of 38 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. A.
The meaning of the expression is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist (1838): [1] [2] "We cut over the fields at the back with him between us – straight as the crow flies – through hedge and ditch."
Salting a bird's tail is a legendary superstition of Europe and America, and an English language idiom. The superstition is that sprinkling salt on a bird's tail will render the bird temporarily unable to fly, enabling its capture. The nursery rhyme "Simple Simon", which dates to at least the 17th century and possibly earlier, includes the verse
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
The birds and the bees" is a colloquial expression referring to a rite of passage in the lives of most children when parents begin sex education by explaining human sexuality and sexual intercourse to them.
In the final stanza, he goes on to compare the poets to the birds — exiled from the skies and then weighed down by their giant wings, till death. Herman Melville's Moby-Dick alludes to Coleridge's albatross. [2] In his poem Snake, published in Birds, Beasts and Flowers, D. H. Lawrence mentions the albatross in Ancient Mariner.