ˈduck-bill, n.
[f. duck n.1 + bill n.2]
a. Red wheat; more fully duck-bill wheat.
| 1556 Withals Dict. (1568) 20 a/1 Ador, is also an other kinde of wheate..whiche we doo nowe call duckbill. 1597 Gerarde Herbal i. xl. §5. 60 Red Wheate is called in Kent Duckbill Wheate. c 1680 Enquiries 2/2 Wheat—Square gray with ailes, otherwise called Dunovex, Duck-bill Wheat, and Duke wheat. 1832 Veg. Subst. Food 32 The cultivation of..Duck-Bill, or Conical-Wheat—Triticum turgidum—has been attempted in England. |
b. The broad-toed shoe worn in the 15th c.
| 1834 J. R. Planché Brit. Costume 202 When men became tired of these pointed shoes..they adopted others in their stead denominated duck-bills. |
c. = Duck-billed platypus: see below.
| 1840 Penny Cycl. XVII. 28/1 Ornithorhynchus, Blumenbach's name for that extraordinary quadrupedal form, The Duckbill or Duckbilled Platypus. 1850 J. B. Clutterbuck Port Philip iii. 42 Platypus, water-mole or duckbill. |
d. duck-bill speculum, a speculum flattened like a duck's bill.
| 1879 J. M. Duncan Lect. Dis. Women ix. (1889) 55 The duck-bill speculum is the best. 1882 Quain's Dict. Med. 1778 Another form of speculum much used of late years..is the ‘duck-bill’ speculum. |
e. duck-bill (scraper), Archæol., a scraper (sense 4 e) flattened like a duck's bill.
| 1911 J. Chambers Stone Age Lake Lothing 11 Here are disc-shaped and duckbill scrapers. 1959 J. D. Clark Prehist. S. Afr. viii. 206 Another form of scraper made on a blade is known as a ‘duck-bill’. |
Hence duck-billed a., having a bill like a duck. duck-billed platypus, the Ornithorhynchus of Australia, a monotrematous mammal having a horny beak resembling the bill of a duck; duck-billed cat, the paddle-fish (Polyodon spatula); duck-billed speculum: see duck-bill d.
| 1822–34 Good Study Med. (ed. 4) III. 13 The platypus or ornithorhynchus as he [Blumenbach] calls it, that most extraordinary duck-billed quadruped which has lately been discovered in Australasia. 1847 Carpenter Zool. §317 The Ornithorhyncus or Duck-billed Platypus, the Water Mole of the Colonist. 1859 Cornwallis New World I. 35 Know ye the land contrariety sways..Where black swans..With water-rats, duck-billed, come forth to the day? |
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▸ More fully duck-bill dinosaur. = duck-billed dinosaur n. at Additions.
| 1913 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 32 395, I suspect, from the similarity of the pelves, that like Saurolophus, it was a crested duck-bill. 1958 W. E. Swinton Fossil Amphibians & Reptiles (ed. 2) xii. 88 One of the main characters of this group of dinosaurs is that they had bills like those of ducks at the front of the mouth; the family is often called the duck-bill dinosaurs. 1989 Nature Conservancy Mar.–Apr. 40/1 The discovery of duckbill dinosaur nests and young..is one of the greatest finds of our century. |
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▸ duck-billed dinosaur n. a hadrosaurid dinosaur; cf. duck-bill dinosaur at Additions.
| 1913 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 32 387 (title) The skeleton of Saurolophus, a crested *duck-billed dinosaur from the Edmonton Cretaceous. 2001 D. Burnie Kingfisher Illustr. Dinosaur Encycl. 106/2 Lambeosaurus is the largest duck-billed dinosaur so far discovered. |