[SONG sb.]
1. A bird having the power of song; a singing-bird. (Cf. SONGSTER 3.).
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. iii. (1824), II. 338. Of the nightingale and other soft-billed song birds.
1783. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), X. 8670/1. The deficiency of most other song-birds in that country.
1857. Livingstone, Trav., xvii. 325. It is remarkable that so many song-birds abound where there is a general paucity of other animal life.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, viii. 235. Into the clear light his paradoxes, and his irony, and his unblushing satire spring like song-birds rejoicing in their flight.
2. transf. A superb (female) singer.
1887. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, x. (ed. 3), 114. The reigning queens of song … are hardly overpaid. Such song-birds are exceedingly rare.
1896. A. L. Parkes, in Godey’s Mag., April, 412/2. The second of the noted Magyar song-birds within current recollection was Etelka Gerster.
