Also kil-. [Imitative of its note.] The largest species of ring-plover (Ægialitis vocifera) of North America.
1731. Mortimer, in Phil. Trans., XXXVII. 176. The Chattering Plover. In Virginia they are called Kildeers, from some Resemblance of their Noise to the Sound of that Word.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 214. Kildee or Chattering Plover.
a. 1862. Thoreau, Cape Cod, vii. (1865), 123. The kildeer plover … fills the air above with its din.
1888. J. C. Harris, Free Joe, etc. 26. As happy … as a killdee by a mill-race.
