Word.ws English Dictionary

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)

  1. 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

pluraldevil birds

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

  1. Devighat
  2. devigorate
  3. devigorated
  4. devil
  5. devil a bit
  6. devil bird
  7. devil birds
  8. devil bolt
  9. devil bolts
  10. devil chase
  11. devil dance

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.

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