▪ I. birdie, n.
(ˈbɜːdɪ)
[f. bird n. + -ie, -y4.]
1. a. A little bird, a dear or pretty little bird.
| 1792 Burns Braes o' Ballochmyle, Ye birdies dumb, in with'ring bowers. 1864 Tennyson Sea Dreams 281 She sang this baby song. What does little birdie say In her nest at peep of day? |
b. = bird n. 1 d. Cf. birdeen.
| 1889 Cent. Dict., Birdie.., a term of endearment for a child or a young woman. 1915 P. MacGill Amateur Army v. 62 ‘Cup of coffee, birdie!’ he cried,..trying to grip her [sc. the waitress's] hand. |
2. In golf: the fact of doing a hole in one under the par score. (Cf. bird n. 4 b.)
| [1911 Maclean's Mag. Sept. 205/1 Lanesborough followed with a ‘bird’ straight down the course, about two hundred and fifteen yards.] 1921 Glasgow Herald 14 Sept. 10 Brown squared with a ‘birdie’ 3 at the second. 1923 Daily Mail 13 June 10 Then he went all out to ‘shoot birdies’..the American colloquialism for aiming at doing holes in a stroke under the par scores. 1960 Times 23 May 5/1 She..at last got down a birdie putt. |
▪ II. ˈbirdie, v. Golf.
[f. the n. (sense 2).]
trans. To play (a hole) in one under the par score.
| 1956 H. W. Wind Story Amer. Golf vi. 545 Fleck had been faced with birdieing that hole the day before. 1968 Times 11 Oct. 13/2 He birdied the 14th, and missed three six-foot putts. 1975 New Yorker 5 May 103/1 This was the championship in which Palmer got back into the fight by birdieing six of the first seven holes on that final round. 1984 News (Mexico City) 12 Mar. 32/2 She was within one shot of the lead before double-bogeying 13—a hole Johnson birdied to go back up by five strokes. |