Word.ws English Dictionary

curlews

curlews is the plural of curlew.

Meaning of curlew

Noun

curlew (plural curlews)

  1. Any of several migratory wading birds in the genus Numenius, remarkable for their long, slender, downcurved bills.
    • The corncrake nested in the unmown field
      Answers its mate, across the misty stream
      On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
      And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh [...]a. 1881, Oscar Wilde, 'The Garden of Eros', in Poems
  2. (Australia) A stone curlew (Burhinidae spp.).
    • That quivering wail from the billabong lying murkily mystic towards the East was only the cry of the fearing curlew.1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 16

Phrases with curlews

Questions about curlews

What is curlews the plural of?
Curlews is the plural of curlew.

Words near curlews in the dictionary

  1. Curlew Waters
  2. curlewberries
  3. curlewberry
  4. Curlewis
  5. curlewlike
  6. curlews
  7. Curley
  8. Curleys
  9. curli
  10. curliate
  11. curliation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: curlews (page history and authors); curlew (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “curlews.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/curlews. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.