FLIGHTLESS BIRD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does flightless bird mean? 

• FLIGHTLESS BIRD (noun)
  The noun FLIGHTLESS BIRD has 1 sense:

1. flightless birds having flat breastbones lacking a keel for attachment of flight muscles: ostriches; cassowaries; emus; moas; rheas; kiwis; elephant birds

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• FLIGHTLESS BIRD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Flightless birds having flat breastbones lacking a keel for attachment of flight muscles: ostriches; cassowaries; emus; moas; rheas; kiwis; elephant birds

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

flightless bird; ratite; ratite bird

Hypernyms ("flightless bird" 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 "flightless bird"):

ostrich; Struthio camelus (fast-running African flightless bird with two-toed feet; largest living bird)

cassowary (large black flightless bird of Australia and New Guinea having a horny head crest)

Dromaius novaehollandiae; emu; Emu novaehollandiae (large Australian flightless bird similar to the ostrich but smaller)

apteryx; kiwi (nocturnal flightless bird of New Zealand having a long neck and stout legs; only surviving representative of the order Apterygiformes)

rhea; Rhea americana (larger of two tall fast-running flightless birds similar to ostriches but three-toed; found from Brazil to Patagonia)

nandu; Pterocnemia pennata; rhea (smaller of two tall fast-running flightless birds similar to ostriches but three-toed; found from Peru to Strait of Magellan)

aepyornis; elephant bird (huge (to 9 ft.) extinct flightless bird of Madagascar)

moa (extinct flightless bird of New Zealand)