Dictionary

strange bird en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, informal) An unusual person, especially one with an idiosyncratic personality or peculiar behavioral characteristics.
   • I never saw him, but Jackie Langley told me Kerouac was a strange bird, stayed drunk, talked crazy, brooded. 1992, Kaye Gibbons, “My Mother, Literature, and a Life Split Neatly into Two Halves”, in Janet Sternburg, editor, The Writer on Her Work, volume 2, →ISBN, page 56:
   • Jena Janovy is a strange bird—a college basketball player who is a) female and b) short (5 feet 3 inches) and, perhaps oddest of all, lets neither of those things dampen her rabid enthusiasm for the game. 1987 June 14, Karen Stabiner, “Putting her Heart through the Hoop”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Jul 2010:
   • In this land, too, there dwelled a young man who was a fowler, but a bit of a strange bird he was, for he only captured his birds, preferring not to slaughter them. 2004, Tony K. Stewart, Fabulous Females and Peerless Pīrs: Tales of mad adventure in old Bengal, Oxford, →ISBN, page 67:
   • "You're a strange bird, Meehan," Leroy told him. "When you find out whose house you're in, call me back." 2003, Donald E. Westlake, Put a Lid on It, →ISBN, page 57:

Forms

Relateds

rare bird

Synonyms

queer fish · odd bird · odd duck · oddball · queer duck · odd one out · misfit

Translations (14)

sv främmande fågel (an unusual person) · fr drôle d’oiseau (an unusual person) · sv udda fågel (an unusual person) · hu csodabogár (an unusual person) · cmn 怪人 (an unusual person) · sh čudna biljka (an unusual person) · fi outolintu (an unusual person) · fr drôle de type (an unusual person) · de komischer Vogel (an unusual person) · es bicho raro (an unusual person) · hu csodapók (an unusual person) · nl vreemde vogel (an unusual person) · pl dziwoląg (an unusual person) · sh чудна биљка (an unusual person)