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egret.

Any of various wading birds of the genera Egretta or Ardea that includes herons, many of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈiːɡɹɪt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈiɡɹɪt/General-American/ˈiˌɡɹɛt/General-American/iˈɡɹɛt/General-American
  1. Any of various wading birds of the genera Egretta or Ardea that includes herons, many of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season.

  2. A plume or tuft of feathers worn as a part of a headdress, or anything imitating such an ornament.

  3. The flying feathery or hairy crown of seeds or achenes, such as the down of the thistle.

  4. The crab-eating macaque (Macaca fascicularis)

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman egret, aigrette (“egret”), from Old Occitan aigreta, diminutive of aigron (“heron”), from Medieval Latin hairo, from Frankish *haigro (“heron”). Cognate with Old High German heigaro (“heron”), Old English hrāgra (“heron”). Doublet of aigrette. More at heron.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.