loerie S. Afr.
(ˈlʊrɪ)
Also loorie, lourie.
[Afrikaans, f. Du. lori lory.]
= touraco.
| 1798 A. Barnard Jrnl. in A. W. C. Lindsay Lives of Lindsays (1849) III. 408, I began to collect my Cape trifles for my friends at home,—some beautiful loories alive—some still more beautiful swallows dead. 1810 W. J. Burchell Jrnl. 7 Dec. in Trav. S. Afr. (1822) I. ii. 20 In the aviary, I saw the Touracoo, called Loeri by the colonists. 1812 Anne Plumptre Lichtenstein's S. Africa I. 195 The cuculus persa, a beautiful bird, called by the colonists loeri or luri. 1850 J. S. Christopher Natal 33 The beautiful and soft-voiced loerie, the golden cuckoo, the green pigeon..and many others too numerous to particularise. [1908 East London (Cape Province) Dispatch 4 Dec. 4 The vlei-lourie, perhaps better known hereabouts as the ‘rain-bird’, the natives regarding it as a weather prophet.] 1932 Discovery July 230/2 The Louries, magnificent in green, blue and carmine..nest outside the door of the mission [at Kilimanjaro]. 1950 Cape Argus Mag. 18 Mar. 7/7 Loeries with their beautiful crimson-and-green plumage fill the air with their liquid call. 1957 V. W. Turner Schism & Continuity in Afr. Soc. x. 293 The woman may dream that her dead relative has appeared to her equipped like a hunter, wearing the red wing-feather of a lourie in her hair. 1971 Eveing Post (Port Elizabeth, S.A.) Suppl. 12 June 5 When we think of birds in general, it is the pleasanter members of that enormous family that come to mind—the brilliantly-plumaged sunbird, the dove, the loerie. |