devil bird
devil bird noun: an avian cryptid of Sri Lanka, said to emit human-sounding shrieks that portend death; possibly the spot-bellied eagle owl (Bubo nipalensis) or Ceylon highland nightjar (Caprimulgus indicus).
Noun
devil bird (plural devil birds)
- An avian cryptid of Sri Lanka, said to emit human-sounding shrieks that portend death; possibly the spot-bellied eagle owl (Bubo nipalensis) or Ceylon highland nightjar (Caprimulgus indicus).
- Residents of Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southern coast of India, describe a devil bird — also known as ulama — that is seldom seen but often heard at night, when it utters an eerie cry like that of “a boy in torture, whose screams are stopped by being strangled.“2009, Michael Newton, Hidden Animals: A Field Guide to Batsquatch, Chupacabra, and Other Elusive Creatures
- Synonyms:
- ulama
Synonyms of devil bird
Forms of devil bird
| plural | devil birds |
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Questions about devil bird
- What does devil bird mean?
- Devil bird means an avian cryptid of Sri Lanka, said to emit human-sounding shrieks that portend death; possibly the spot-bellied eagle owl (Bubo nipalensis) or Ceylon highland nightjar (Caprimulgus indicus).
- What part of speech is devil bird?
- Devil bird is a noun.
- What is the plural of devil bird?
- The plural of devil bird is devil birds.
Words near devil bird in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: devil bird (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “devil bird.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/devil_bird. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
