Dictionary

lintwhite en · NOUN

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English lynkwhytte, lyngwhitte (also as Middle English lindetvigle), from Old English līnetwiġe, līnetwiġle (“linnet”).

Meanings

1. (archaic) A linnet.
   • At midnight the moon cometh, / And looketh down alone; / Her song the lintwhite swelleth, / The clear voiced mavis dwelleth […] 1830, Tennyson Alfred Lord, “"Claribel"”, in Poems Chiefly Lyrical:
   • O sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, / When lintwhites chant amang the buds, 1785, Robert Burns, Epistle To William Simson Schoolmaster, Ochiltree::
   • The mavis, merle, and Progne proud, The lintwhite lark, and laverock loud, 1597, Alexander Montgomery, The Cherrie and the Slae:

Forms