Now arch. and dial. Forms: 1 stær, (stear, star), 5 staar, 6 star, staare, 7 steare, 8 stear, 4– stare. [OE. stær masc. = MLG. star masc., OHG. star masc., stara fem. (mod.G. star, also written staar, stahr), OIcel. stari (Edda Gl.; Sw., Norw. stare, Da. stær):—OTeut. *staro-z, starŏn-, cogn. w. L. sturnus of the same meaning.] A bird of the genus Sturnus: = STARLING.

1

a. 725.  Corpus Gloss., Sturnus, staer.

2

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., Matt. x. 29. Tuoeʓe staras vel hronsparuas.

3

c. 1381.  Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 348. The stare that the counsell can bewrey.

4

c. 1400.  Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), V. v. (1859), 76. Thenne I bethought me vppon the byrdes as thrusshes and thrustels, and stares.

5

1486.  Bk. St. Albans, f vi b. A Murmuracion of stares.

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1530.  Palsgr., 275/2. Staare a byrde, estourneav.

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c. 1532.  Du Wes, Introd. Fr., ibid. 912. The star, lesprohon.

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1542.  Boorde, Dyetary, xv. (1870), 271. Rasis and Isaac prayseth yonge staares.

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1639.  Sir R. Gordon, Gen. Hist. Earldom Sutherland, 3. Steares or stirlings,… and all other kinds of wildfowl and birds.

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1673.  Dryden, Marr. à la Mode, III. i. He taught a prating Stare to speak my name.

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a. 1721.  Prior, Poems, Turtle & Sparrow, 356. An honest Rook Told it a Snipe, who told a Stear Who told it those, who told it her.

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1768.  Pennant, Brit. Zool., I. 231. The Stare breeds in hollow trees, eaves of houses &c.

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1845.  New Stat. Acc. Scot., XIV. 189. (Ross & Cromarty) The stare is also a rare bird.

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1868.  Morris, Earthly Par., I. I. 167. And plovers cry about the meads, And the stares chatter.

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1910.  Pamela Tennant, in Spectator, 26 March, 506/1.

        Larks circled upward in the outer air,
Whitethroat, and willow-wren, and whistling stare
            Singing together.

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  b.  Ornith. With prefixed word, denoting some particular species of the genus Sturnus.

17

1678.  Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., II. xix. 196. Bontius his Indian Stare. [Willughby Sturnus Indicus Bontii.]

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1787.  Latham, Suppl. Gen. Syn. Birds, I. 137. Common Stare, Sturnus vulgaris. Silk Stare. Length eight inches.

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1829.  Griffith, trans. Cuvier, VII. 173. Cape Stare, Sturnus Capensis.

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