Wordie [wûrd • ē]
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14 wordies list
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first listed by:
hauntedtapedeck (139 words)
appears in these lists:
Bianca's Words, by Bianca
Dain's Words, by Dain
N, by georgielily
gale force, by sionnach
birds, by knitandpurl
Proustian, by knitandpurl
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Cute, bilby.
A little message from the nightingale for you all, right here.
"But her words remained so indistinct and the sound which was all that I caught was prolonged so sweetly and seemed to me so musical that it was as if, among the dim branches of the trees, a nightingale had begun to sing."
-- Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, pp 537-538 of the Modern Library paperback edition
Nightingales are so named because they frequently sing at night as well as during the day. The name has been used for well over 1,000 years, being highly recognizable even in its Anglo-Saxon form - 'nihtingale'. It means 'night songstress'. Early writers assumed the female sang; in fact, it is the male. Its song is loud, with an impressive range of whistles, trills and gurgles, and is particularly noticeable at night because few other birds are singing.