Adjacent Words

bastard wing definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: tuft of small stiff feathers on the first digit of a bird's wing [syn: bastard wing, alula, spurious wing]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1772 alula

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Bastard Bas"tard, a. 1. Begotten and born out of lawful matrimony; illegitimate. See Bastard, n., note. 2. Lacking in genuineness; spurious; false; adulterate; -- applied to things which resemble those which are genuine, but are really not so. That bastard self-love which is so vicious in itself, and productive of so many vices. --Barrow. 3. Of an unusual make or proportion; as, a bastard musket; a bastard culverin. [Obs.] 4. (Print.) Abbreviated, as the half title in a page preceding the full title page of a book. Bastard ashlar (Arch.), stones for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry. Bastard file, a file intermediate between the coarsest and the second cut. Bastard type (Print.), type having the face of a larger or a smaller size than the body; e.g., a nonpareil face on a brevier body. Bastard wing (Zo["o]l.), three to five quill feathers on a small joint corresponding to the thumb in some mam malia; the alula.