ˈredbreast
1. a. The robin (see also Robin redbreast).
| c 1401 Lydg. Flower Courtesy 58 The sely wrenne, the titmose also, The litel redbrest. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 426/2 Redbreste, byrde, rubellus. 1530 Palsgr. 261/2 Reed breest a byrde, rovgegorge. 1604 Drayton Owle 87 Covering with Mosse the deads unclosed eye, The little Red-brest teacheth Charitie. 1647 Ward Simp. Cobler 74 Should I heare..a Horse whistle like a Red-breast, it would scare me. 1708 Prior Turtle & Sparrow 18 Ye pious Redbreasts, deck his Hearse. 1750 Gray Elegy 119 The Redbreast loves to build and warble there. 1847 Lytton Lucretia (1853) 300 The spray of the willow trembles with the wing of the redbreast. 1894 Newton Dict. Birds 771 Even those Redbreasts which stay in Britain during the winter are subject to a migratory movement. |
| attrib. and Comb. 1576 Gascoigne Philomene (Arb.) 110 As the red breast byrds, Whome prettie Merlynes hold. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. i. 265 'Tis the next way to turne Taylor, or be Redbrest teacher. 1783 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Odes to R. A.'s i. 29 May some good Christian Bard..Turn Redbreast kind, and with the sweetest song Bewail our hapless fate with watry eye! 1876 T. Hardy Ethelberta (1890) 115 Bright auburn, several shades nearer to redbreast-red than was Ethelberta's hair. |
b. Applied to other red-breasted birds,
esp. U.S. to the migratory thrush (also called
robin).
| 1775 Clayton in Phil. Trans. LXVI. 105 Of small birds there are several sorts; the red breast, speckled on the back like a partridge [etc.]. 1828–32 in Webster. |
2. transf. (See
quots.)
| 1862 Dickens Lett. 18 Apr. (1880) II. 178 The Bow Street runners..had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons..and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was indispensible, and the slang name for them was ‘red⁓breasts’ in consequence. 1899 London Letter 10 Nov. 701/2 The ‘Redbreasts’, or New South Wales Lancers, who have been at Aldershot for a year. |
3. U.S. The long-eared sunfish,
Lepomis megalotis.
| 1888 G. B. Goode Amer. Fishes 66 In Pennsylvania it [sc. the long-eared sun-fish] is called ‘Sun Perch’ and ‘Red Headed Bream’, elsewhere it is the ‘Red Breast’. 1948 New Hanover Fishing Club Prize List 30 Annual prizes for freshwater fish..Red Breast. |