passerine

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

passerine

/ˈpæsəɹaɪn/ UK
/-ɹən/ UK
/-ɹiːn/ UK
/ˈpæsəˌɹaɪn/ US

Where it comes from

Adjective sense 1 is borrowed from New Latin Passer (“bird genus”) (from Latin passer (“sparrow”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to spread out; to fly (in the sense of spreading out wings)”)) + English -ine (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).

Adjective sense 2 is borrowed from New Latin passerinus (“bird species”) + English -ine. Passerinus is derived from Latin passerīnus (“of or fit for sparrows”), from passer (“sparrow”) (see above) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).

The noun is borrowed from New Latin Passerinae (“former order of birds”), a calque of French passereaux, the plural of passereau (“sparrow; passerine (bird of the order Passeriformes)”), from Latin passer (“sparrow”) (see above) + -eau (suffix forming diminutive masculine nouns, specifically the names of young animals).

Cognates

* French passerin (“sparrowlike”) (obsolete), Provençal French passerine (“passerine whitethroat, a bird from order Passeriformes”)

adjective

not comparable Of or relating to the Passeriformes order of perching birds, which are generally anisodactyl, having three toes pointing forward and one back, which facilitates perching.
Opposite: nonpasserine
archaic, not comparable, in the former names of some birds approximately the size of a sparrow.

noun passerines

Any bird of the order Passeriformes, which comprises more than half of all bird species. If we examine the names of the Orders of Birds, we find that they are in Latin, […] We might venture to anglicize the terminations of the names which Cuvier gives to the divisions of these Orders: thus the Predators are the Diurnals and the Nocturnals; the Passerines are the Dentirostres, the Fissir
Similar: passeriform, passerine, perching bird · Opposite: nonpasserine

Translations

Every language

adj of or relating to the Passeriformes order of perching birds

中文	燕雀的 yànquè de
Русский	воробьинообразные vorobʹinoobraznyje
עברית	דְּרוֹרִי drorī

noun any bird of the order Passeriformes

Español	paseriforme
中文	燕雀 yànquè
Português	pássaro, passarinho
Français	passerine, passereau

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"passerine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/passerine. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

passerine. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/passerine

Chicago

"passerine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/passerine.

BibTeX

@misc{passerine_2026,
  title = {passerine},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/passerine},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}