sandpiper
(ˈsændpaɪpə(r))
[f. sand n.2 + piper1.]
1. A common name for any limicoline bird which is not a plover or a snipe; esp. Tringoides or Actitis hypoleucus, the Common Sandpiper, and A. macularia, the common N. American Sandpiper.
| 1674 Ray Collect. Words 90 Sand-piper: Tringa minor. 1768 G. White Selborne, To Pennant 8 Oct., The sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus. 1785 Latham Gen. Synopsis Birds III. 170 Green Sandpiper. Tringa ochropus, Lin. 1824 J. F. Stephens Shaw's Zool. XII. 130 Wood Sandpiper. (Totanus glareola.) Ibid. 144 Spotted Sandpiper. (Totanus macularia.) Ibid. 146 Purple Sandpiper. (Totanus maritimus.) 1835 Audubon Ornithol. Biogr. III. 444 The Curlew Sandpiper. Tringa subarquata, Temm. 1886 Newton in Encycl. Brit. XXI. 260/1 The birds commonly called Sandpipers seem to form three sections,..Totaninæ, Tringinæ, and Phalaropodinæ. 1892 Stevenson Across the Plains ii. 78 Sandpipers trot in and out by troops after the retiring waves. |
2. A kind of lamprey (see quot.).
| 1880 Günther Fishes 693 The ‘Pride’ or ‘Sand-Piper’ or Small Lampern (Petromyzon branchialis). |