brubru

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English[edit]

WOTD – 11 May 2019

Etymology[edit]

A brubru (Nilaus afer)

Borrowed from French brubru, ultimately imitative of the call of the male of the species.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

brubru (plural brubrus)

  1. Also more fully as brubru shrike: a bird in the bushshrike family found in sub-Saharan Africa (Nilaus afer).
    • 1845, “LANIUS”, in Edward Smedley, Hugh James Rose, Henry John Rose, editors, Encyclopædia Metropolitana; or, Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, […], volume XXI, London: B. Fellowes;  […], →OCLC, page 305, column 2:
      L[anius] Capensis, Shaw. le Brubru, Le Vaill.; Brubru Shrike. […] Native of the Cape of Good Hope. From its peculiar note brubru, it derives its trivial name.
    • 1932, The Ibis, a Magazine of General Ornithology, London: N[icholas] Trübner and Co., […], →OCLC, page 688:
      It was in the trees south of Timbuktu that I saw most of the Brubrus, […]
    • 1966, Herbert Friedmann, A Contribution to the Ornithology of Uganda: Scientific Results of the 1963 Knudsen-Machris Expedition to Kenya and Uganda, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, →OCLC, page 43, column 2:
      A pair of adult brubrus taken at Moroto, Uganda, 3,500 feet, on May 15, are referrable to the nominate race, although they are not wholly typical of it.
    • 1989, Tom Heaton, In Teleki’s Footsteps: An East African Journey, London: Macmillan, →ISBN, page 75:
      I distinguished the rasping whistles of bru-brus, the clarion choruses of red and yellow barbets, the feverish chattering of superb starlings and the harsh squawks of white-headed buffalo weavers.
    • 2014, Adam Scott Kennedy, “Shrikes – Brubru, Taita Fiscal and Magpie Shrike”, in Birds of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area (Wild Guides), Princeton, N.J., Woodstock, Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 170:
      This bird of dry scrub could be confused with a variety of other similar-looking species, including the tchagras […], but the Brubru is short-tailed and very white in the face and breast. […] The song is a distinctive rolling trill, "prrrrrrrp-prrrrrrrrp", not dissimilar to an old telephone ringing, which is far-carrying.
    • 2015, David Fletcher, chapter 16, in The Country-cides of Namibia and Botswana (Brian’s World), Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN:
      They also saw some tasty representatives of the local avian wildlife in the form of bru-brus, crombecs, tawny eagles and marico flycatchers.

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “brubru, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2017; “brubru”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

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