starling

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɑːlɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: stär′lĭng, IPA^(key): /ˈstɑɹlɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)lɪŋ
• Hyphenation: star‧ling

From Middle English starling, sterling, sterlinge, from Old English stærling, from stær (“starling”) + -ling (diminutive suffix).^[1] Cognate with Middle Dutch sterlinck (“starling”).

starling (plural starlings)

1. A family, Sturnidae, of passerine birds.
   2. The common starling, Sturnus vulgaris, which has dark, iridescent plumage.

      Synonyms: European starling, (archaic, dialectal) stare

      • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501:

        Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.

2. A fish, rock trout (Hexagrammos spp.), of the North Pacific, especially, Hexagrammos decagrammus, found in US waters.

   Synonyms: boregat, bodieron

• sterling (obsolete (Middle English – 18th c.))

Apparently a variant of staddling (although difficult to account for), or perhaps an alteration by association with another (unidentified) word.^[2]

starling (plural starlings)

1. (construction) An enclosure like a coffer-dam, formed of piles driven closely together before any structure or work, as a protection against the wash of waves, commonly used to protect the piers of a bridge.
2. One of the piles used in forming such a breakwater.

• sterling (obsolete (18th–20th c.))

• starling on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Category:Sturnidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
  • Sturnidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Hexagrammos on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Category:Hexagrammos on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
  • Hexagrammos on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• starling (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “starling”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 5908, column 1.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “starling”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volume V, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 5908, column 1.
• “starling”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• ratlings