spink

See also: Spink

English

Noun

spink (plural spinks)

1. (obsolete, dialectal) The chaffinch.
2. The primrose.
3. The lady's smock or cuckooflower.

Verb

spink (third-person singular simple present spinks, present participle spinking, simple past and past participle spinked)

1. (intransitive, uncommon, of certain birds, especially chaffinchs and blackbirds) To call or vocalize.
   • 1907 September, O. V. Aplin, “Notes on the Ornithology of Oxfordshire, 1905–1906”, in The Zoologist, volume XI, number 795, page 323:

     The Chaffinches ‘‘spinked” as though its presence was not required, but it seemed to be feeding on insects only.

   • 1909 June 19, “Linnet Singing at Leeds. Unvarnished Reports versus Bluff and Bounce”, in Cage Birds and Bird World, volume XV, number 388, page 587:

     The Linnet called “ Chivvey ” can tweet and spink and song-sing, and is full of clicks and jars, like the other.

   • 1949, Denys Watkins-Pitchford, “The Animal Banquet”, in The Little Grey Men, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 144:

     Woodpig was rootling for worms up the brook when he was surprised to see Chaffinch, "spinking" at him from a hazel twig.

   • 1954, Jack Badcock, chapter 3, in Waybent, London: Hutchingson & Co., page 77:

     And his voice sounded good, too, and loud and clear, and he put two of his fingers into his mouth and whistled, a piercing, high-pitched scream of a whistle, and there was a sudden silence as though the noise had penetrated the brain of all things and stunned movement; but in a second the spinking blackbird began again his yittering, and all were at song again.

   • 1966 January 7 [1964 July 30], Paul Slud, The Birds of Costa Rica, page 65:

     The cry of this species, which consists of a number of rapidly ‘‘spinking” notes, reminds me of that of the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the United States.

   • 2016, John Lewis-Stempel, “The Turn of the Earth” (chapter VI), in The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland, Doubleday, page 277:

     6 DECEMBER The winter sun is a flat blade of white on the horizon. Blackbirds are spinking, a charmless sound, done by rote.

   • 2017, Karen Lloyd, “The Land Remade” (chapter 13), in The Blackbird Diaries: A Year with Wildlife, Saraband, page 146:

     Somewhere in the five gardens, a blackbird spinked, petulantly.

Anagrams

• Pinks, Pinsk, pinks