What does blackbird mean?
A blackbird is a familiar songbird, but which bird it names depends on where you are. In Britain and Europe, it refers to the thrush Turdus merula: the male is jet black with a bright yellow bill and orange eye-ring, while females are brownish. It is celebrated for its rich, fluting song, often among the first voices heard at dawn and last at dusk, making it a fixture of gardens, hedgerows, poetry, and song. In North America, 'blackbird' instead covers several species of the family Icteridae, most famously the red-winged blackbird, whose males display scarlet shoulder patches in wetlands. The word is a straightforward compound of 'black' and 'bird'. It carries warm connotations of countryside and springtime, appears in the old rhyme about twenty-four blackbirds baked in a pie, and gave rise to the darker term 'blackbirding' for coerced labour in the Pacific.
nounA common Eurasian thrush (Turdus merula) in which the male has entirely black plumage and a yellow bill, noted for its rich melodious song; in North America, the name refers instead to any of various songbirds such as the red-winged blackbird or rusty blackbird.
- The Eurasian thrush Turdus merula (male black with a yellow bill), famed for its song — the dominant sense in British English.
- Any of various New World songbirds of the family Icteridae, such as the red-winged blackbird — the standard sense in American English.
"At dawn, a blackbird sang from the hedgerow, its song carrying across the quiet fields."
"A blackbird hopped along the garden path before bursting into song."
"Flocks of red-winged blackbirds settled over the marshland as evening fell."
Regular plural; often used collectively for flocks.
"Hundreds of blackbirds wheeled over the marsh at dusk."
The nursery rhyme 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' baked four-and-twenty blackbirds into a pie — and in medieval times, cooks really did hide live birds inside pastry to burst out at serving.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of blackbird
Blackbird arose in English as a transparent compound of the Old English words 'blæc' (black) and 'bridd' or 'bird', originally used to distinguish genuinely dark-plumaged birds from others. It has cognates across Germanic languages, reflecting shared roots for both elements, such as German 'Schwarzdrossel' for the same species and Dutch 'merel'. The compound pattern recurs in other animal names like blackberry and blacksmith.
Related word forms
How blackbird is actually used
In British English, 'blackbird' almost always means Turdus merula; in North American English it typically means an icterid such as the red-winged blackbird. The word is also historically associated with 'blackbirding', the coercive recruitment of Pacific Islanders as labourers.
Easily confused with blackbird
A starling is a different bird with iridescent speckled plumage and a short tail, whereas the male Eurasian blackbird is uniformly dark with a distinctive yellow bill.