English

Alternative forms

• killdee
• kill-deer

Noun

killdeer ‎(plural killdeers or killdeer)

A killdeer.

1. A North American plover (Charadrius vociferus) with a distinctive cry and territorial behavior that includes feigning injury to distract interlopers from the nest.
   • 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger Poeple's" Country, Nebraska 2005, p. 50:

     A kill-deer, flying so low as to dip its wings, ever and anon alighted on the margin, its stilt-like legs half submerged as it ran hither and thither, now and then bending to dig in the sand with its long slender bill.

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