chickadee

English

Black-capped chickadee

Etymology

Apparent onomatopoeia from these birds' calls making a distinctive “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” sound, possibly influenced by chick or chicken.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃɪ.kəˌdi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

chickadee (plural chickadees)

1. A small passerine bird (songbird) of the genus Parus or the family Paridae.

   Synonyms: tit, titmouse

   • 1904, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Fragments on Nature and Life”, in Poems:

     In Walden wood the chickadee / Runs round the pine and maple tree

2. Affectionate term of address.

Derived terms

• Acadian chickadee
• black-capped chickadee
• boreal chickadee
• Carolina chickadee
• chestnut-backed chickadee
• grey-headed chickadee
• Mexican chickadee
• mountain chickadee

 

Translations

songbird

• Afrikaans: mees (af)
• Albanian: trishtil (sq) m, tringec (sq) m, cinkë (sq) f
• Armenian: երաշտահավ (hy) (eraštahav)
• Asturian: branín (ast)
• Belarusian: сіні́ца f (siníca), гіль m (hilʹ)
• Bulgarian: сини́гер (bg) m (siníger)
• Catalan: mallerenga (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 山雀 (zh) (shānquè)

• Czech: sýkora (cs) f, sýkorka f
• Danish: mejse (da) c
• Dutch: mees (nl) f
• Esperanto: paruo (eo)
• Estonian: tihane (et)
• Faroese: títa f
• Finnish: tiainen (fi) (family Paridae); talitiainen (fi) (genus Parus)
• French: mésange (fr) f
• Galician: meixengra f
• German: Meise (de) f
• Greek: παπαδίτσα (el) f (papadítsa)
• Hindi: रामगंगरा (rāmgaṅgrā)
• Hungarian: cinege (hu), cinke (hu)
• Irish: méantán m
• Italian: cincia (it) f
• Japanese: 四十雀 (ja) (shijūkara), シジュウカラ (ja) (shijūkara)
• Korean: 박새 (ko) (baksae)
• Latin: parus
• Lithuanian: zylė (lt) f
• Low German: Mees’ f, Meesch f
• Lutshootseed: c̓əlc̓əlkayus
• Luxembourgish: Mees f
• Macedonian: сипка f (sipka), сенка f (senka)
• Mohawk: tsiktsiré:re
• Navajo: chʼíshiibeezhii
• Norwegian: meis (no) m
• Panamint: annakki
• Persian: چرخ‌ریسک
• Polish: sikora (pl) f
• Portuguese: chapim (pt) m
• Romanian: pițigoi (ro) m
• Romansch: maset m
• Russian: сини́ца (ru) f (siníca), га́ичка (ru) f (gáička)
• Sami:

  Skolt Sami: ceeʒʒaž

• Scottish Gaelic: cailleachag f, currac-baintighearna f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: сеница f, сјеница f

  Roman: senica (sh) f, sjenica (sh) f

• Sicilian: cacasipala (scn) f
• Slovak: sýkorka (sk) f
• Slovene: sinica (sl) f
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: sykora, sykorka

  Upper Sorbian: sykorka, sykora

• Spanish: carbonero (es) m
• Swedish: mes (sv) c, tita (sv) c
• Ukrainian: сини́ця f (synýcja)
• Vietnamese: bạc má
• Volapük: parud (vo)
• Walloon: mazindje (wa) f
• West Frisian: mies

Further reading

• chickadee on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “chickadee”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.