twite

• IPA^(key): /twaɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪt

Onomatopoeic.

twite (plural twites)

1. A small passerine bird, Linaria flavirostris (syn. Carduelis flavirostris), that breeds in northern Europe and across central Asia.
   • 1976, J. T. R. Sharrock, The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland‎, page 420:

     The Twite has the distinction of being the only European bird derived from the Tibetan fauna type.

   • 1986, Valerie M. Thom, Birds in Scotland‎, page 331:

     Twites also breed in southwest and central Asia – at up to 3,500 m asl in Tibet – and it is supposed that the European relict populations became isolated during the retreat of the ice age (Voous 1960).

   • 2007, Simon Wood, The Birds of Essex‎, page 557:

     With subsequent climate warming, Twites in Europe followed the tundra north and became isolated.

• (Linaria flavirostris): heather lintie (Scotland, Orkney), mountain linnet

• linnet

twite (third-person singular simple present twites, present participle twiting, simple past and past participle twited or twit)

1. Obsolete form of twit.

• Witte, tewit