TOUCAN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Toucan

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noun

Toucan n.

(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of fruit-eating birds of tropical America belonging to Ramphastos, Pteroglossus, and allied genera of the family Ramphastidae. They have a very large, but light and thin, beak, often nearly as long as the body itself. Most of the species are brilliantly colored with red, yellow, white, and black in striking contrast.

(Astronom.) A modern constellation of the southern hemisphere.

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Etymology of 'Toucan'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Toucan" Quotes from Famous Books

... people of a semi-tropical region in the direction of Atlantis. Among their sculptures, in Ohio, we find accurate representations of the lamantine, manatee, or sea-cow—found to-day on the shores of Florida, Brazil, and Central America—and of the toucan, a tropical and almost exclusively South American bird. Sea-shells from the Gulf, pearls from the Atlantic, and obsidian from Mexico, have also been found side by side in ...

— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... as small as that of a crane, could support it. We kept it about four months upon biscuit and water, but it then died, apparently for want of nourishment, being almost as light as a bladder. It was very different from every species of the toucan that is represented by Edwards, and I believe has never been described. These birds appeared to have been blown off some island to the northward of us, that is not laid down ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

Words linked to "Toucan" : Ramphastidae, toucanet, piciform bird, family Ramphastidae