chaffinch是什么意思

n. 花鸡；（欧洲）苍头燕雀

中文词源

chaffinch 苍头燕雀

chaff, 谷壳。finch, 雀。

chaffinch: chaffinch: [OE] Etymologically, a chaffinch is a finch which gets its food by pecking amongst the chaff and other grain debris in the barnyard. The word chaff itself (Old English ceaf) probably goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *kaf-, *kef- ‘chew’, which was also the source of chafer ‘beetle’ [OE] (literally the ‘chewing creature’) and jowl. (The verb chaff ‘make fun of’ [19], on the other hand, is probably an alteration of chafe, which came via Old French chaufer and Vulgar Latin *califāre from Latin calefacere ‘make warm’, a relative of English cauldron and calorie.)
=> chafer, jowl
chaffinch (n.): Fringilla cælebs, Old English ceaffinc, literally "chaff-finch," so called for its habit of eating waste grain among the chaff on farms. See chaff + finch.

1. Thorpe next set out to determine exactly when the chaffinch learns to sing.: 接着,索普就开始研究苍头燕雀是在什么时候学唱歌的.

2. Thorpe also showed that the chaffinch is selective in what it will imitate.: 索普还证明,苍头燕雀学歌是有所选择的.

3. The chaffinch has three or four songs and produces them in a specific order.: 苍头燕雀合唱三、四种歌,唱的时候按着一定的先后次序.