Word.ws English Dictionary

ortolans

ortolans is the plural of ortolan.

Meaning of ortolan

Noun

ortolan (plural ortolans)

  1. A small European migratory bunting (Emberiza hortulana), once eaten whole as a delicacy.
    • […]this taught him to consider Sophia as a most delicious morsel, indeed to regard her with the same desires which an ortolan inspires into the soul of an epicure.1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII
  2. (US) Any of various similar birds, especially the bobolink, sora, or snow bunting.
  3. The greater short-toed lark (Calandrella brachydactyla).

Questions about ortolans

What is ortolans the plural of?
Ortolans is the plural of ortolan.

Words near ortolans in the dictionary

  1. Ortokids
  2. ortol
  3. ortolan
  4. ortolan bunting
  5. ortolan buntings
  6. ortolans
  7. ortologue
  8. Orton
  9. Orton cone
  10. Orton Longueville
  11. Orton Park

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ortolans (page history and authors); ortolan (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: “ortolans.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ortolans. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.