chickadee

Apparent onomatopoeia from these birds' calls having a distinctive “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” sound, possibly influenced by chick or chicken.

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃɪk.əˌdi/

  • Audio (California):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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chickadee (plural chickadees)

1. (Canada, US) Any of the small, mostly black and white North American songbirds of the genus Poecile of the family Paridae.

   Synonym: (UK) tit

   • 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.
   • 2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Glitzville:

     I got a date with a cute little chickadee in just a few, an' I don't wanna be late!

• chickadee on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Parus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Parus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• “chickadee”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.