Word.ws English Dictionary

red-bird

red-bird is the alternative form of redbird.

Meaning of redbird

Noun

redbird (plural redbirds)

  1. (Canada, US) Any of several unrelated American songbirds having red plumage.
    • Then she chanced to look up and catch sight of a redbird in a tree.1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug
    1. (Canada, US) Synonym of red tanager.
    2. (Canada, US) Synonym of northern cardinal.
  2. (slang) A capsule of secobarbital.
    • Nearly every pharmaceutical house has its own brands, sold in tablets, solutions or brightly-colored capsules, on which its “detail men” keep doctors informed. Probably the most popular successors to Veronal are Seconal (“red birds” to the bootleg trade) and Nembutal ("yellow jackets").1952 October 13, Richard L. Williams, “‘To sleep: perchance…’”, in Life, volume 33, number 15, page 110
    Synonyms:
    red, red devil
  3. Any of various red cars formerly used in the New York City subway system; or a train of such cars.

Forms of red-bird

pluralred-birds

Questions about red-bird

What is red-bird the alternative form of?
Red-bird is the alternative form of redbird.

Words near red-bird in the dictionary

  1. red-billed gulls
  2. red-billed leiothrix
  3. red-billed leiothrixes
  4. red-billed woodcreeper
  5. red-billed woodcreepers
  6. red-bird
  7. red-black tree
  8. red-black trees
  9. red-blood
  10. red-blooded
  11. red-bloodedness

Source and license

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