BIRD OF PREY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bird of prey mean? 

• BIRD OF PREY (noun)
  The noun BIRD OF PREY has 1 sense:

1. any of numerous carnivorous birds that hunt and kill other animals

  Familiarity information: BIRD OF PREY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BIRD OF PREY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of numerous carnivorous birds that hunt and kill other animals

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

bird of prey; raptor; raptorial bird

Hypernyms ("bird of prey" is a kind of...):

bird (warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bird of prey"):

Accipitriformes; order Accipitriformes (in some classifications an alternative name for the Falconiformes)

hawk (diurnal bird of prey typically having short rounded wings and a long tail)

bird of Jove; eagle (any of various large keen-sighted diurnal birds of prey noted for their broad wings and strong soaring flight)

vulture (any of various large diurnal birds of prey having naked heads and weak claws and feeding chiefly on carrion)

Sagittarius serpentarius; secretary bird (large long-legged African bird of prey that feeds on reptiles)

bird of Minerva; bird of night; hooter; owl (nocturnal bird of prey with hawk-like beak and claws and large head with front-facing eyes)

 Context examples 

What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

As to myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey towards the family.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

With his long beak-like nose and his single gleaming eye, which shone brightly from under a thick tuft of grizzled brow, he seemed to Alleyne to have something of the look of some fierce old bird of prey.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He thought his ears, being used to such abominable words, might, by degrees, admit them with less detestation: that although he hated the Yahoos of this country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh (a bird of prey) for its cruelty, or a sharp stone for cutting his hoof.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)