lyre-tailed

English

Adjective

lyre-tailed (not comparable)

  1. Of birds, having ornamental tail feathers that resemble the curved arms of a lyre.
    • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 338:
      Thousands of crows, rather smaller than our rook, keep up a constant cawing in these plantations; the curious wood-swallows (Artami), which closely resemble swallows in their habits and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter from the tree-tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with brilliant black plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the naturalist by the variety of its unmelodious notes.
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