different between curlew vs whap

English

Etymology

From Middle English curlew, from Old French courlieu (see French courlis), claimed to be imitative of the bird's cry but apparently assimilated with dialectal *corliu (“runner, messenger”), a variant of coureur (the bird is adept at running).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k??lju/, /?k??lu/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?lu/

Noun

curlew (plural curlews)

1. Any of several migratory wading birds in the genus Numenius of the family Scolopacidae, remarkable for their long, slender, downcurved bills.
2. (Australia) A stone curlew.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• curlew sandpiper
• stone curlew

Middle English

Alternative forms

• curlewe, curlue, curlu, curlowe, curleeu, corlew, corlewe, corlue, kurlu, kurlew

Etymology

From Old French courlieu.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kur?liu?/, /?kurliu?/

Noun

curlew (plural curlewes)

1. curlew
2. quail

Descendants

• English: curlew

References

• “curleu, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-03-09.

English

Noun

whap (plural whaps)

1. A blow; a hit; a variation of whop.
2. (Scotland) the curlew.

Verb

whap (third-person singular simple present whaps, present participle whapping, simple past and past participle whapped)

1. (US, transitive) To strike hard and suddenly.
2. (US, intransitive) To throw oneself quickly, or by an abrupt motion; to turn suddenly.
   • 1844, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Judge Haliburton’s Yankee Stories, Part Two, Chapter 22, Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, pp. 179-180,^[1]

     He wears his hat a little a one side, rakish-like, whaps his cane down ag’in the pavement hard, as if he intended to keep things in their place, swaggers a few, as if he though he had a right to look big […]

   • 1848, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett & Welford, p. 379,^[2]

     TO WHAP OVER. To turn over. (New England.)

   • 1902, Henry Van Dyke, “The Mill” in The Blue Flower, New York: Scribner, p. 65,^[3]

     And at last, as they wrestled and whapped together, they fell headlong in the stream.

   • 1989, John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 9, p. 524,^[4]

     Screen doors whapped throughout the night […]

   She whapped down on the floor.

   The fish whapped over.

Interjection

whap

1. A sudden blow; a variation of whop.

Derived terms

• awhape

References

• whap in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.