Ornith. Also 7– tangara. [ad. mod.L. Tanagra (Linnæus, 1758), for Tupi tangara (used by Brisson, 1760).] A bird of the genus Tanagra or family Tanagridæ of passerine birds, of Central and South America.
There are numerous species, named from their color, as black-headed, green-headed, red, scarlet, spotted, variegated, yellow tanager; from other characteristics, as crested, grand hooded, silent t.; from their native locality, as Brazilian, Mississippi t.; from resemblance to other birds, as bullfinch, oriole t.; from their discoverer, as Cooper’s t., etc.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, IX. iv. 843. The Tangara which haue the falling-sicknes, the rest dancing about that which is fallen, with a noise, from which they will not be skarred till they haue done.
[1648. Marcgrave, Hist. Nat. Brasil., 214. Tangara Brasiliensibus; (reperiuntur ejus aliquot species colore variantes).]
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 243/1. The Brisilian Tangara [hath] Legs and Feet cinereous, inclining to dusky.
1825. Waterton, Wand. S. Amer. (1882), 26. A numerous species of bird called Tangara.
1844. Zoologist, II. 444. The occurrence of the Red-breasted Tanager near Cheltenbam.
1857. Mayne Reid, War Trail, xlv. The sweet warbling voices of the silvias, finches, tanagers, that … adorn the American woods with their gorgeous colours.
1863. Thoreau, Excursions, 31. The tanager flies through the green foliage as if it would ignite the leaves.
1884. J. T. Trowbridge, Scarlet Tanager, in St. Nicholas, XI. June, 613/2. I ’m not going to let a male Scarlet Tanager escape me, permit or no permit, law or no law!
1893. W. H. Hudson, Idle Days Patagonia, x. 156. It is impossible to say of many species which are finches and which tanagers.
1896. Newton, Dict. Birds, 943. Tanager … adapted from the quasi-Latin Tanagra of Linnæus,… an adaptation, perhaps with a classical allusion, of Tangara, used by Brisson and Buffon.
Hence Tanagrine a., of or pertaining to tanagers; belonging to the family Tanagridæ, or sub-family Tanagrinæ (Cassell’s Encycl. Dict., 1887); Tanagroid (tangaroid) a., resembling the tanagers; akin in structure to the tanager family.
1879. E. P. Wright, Anim. Life, 254. The Tangaroid Perchers.
