[f. SWIFT sb.2 + -LET.] A little or young swift; a small species of swift, as those of the genus Collocalia, which construct the edible birds’ nests of China.
1892. Cornh. Mag., May, 535. Would the swift have to go nestless, to the inconvenience, if not fatal prejudice, of generations of swiftlets unborn?
1898. Sven Hedin’s Through Asia, xix. 245. The edible nests of the swallow, or, more correctly swiftlet.
