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sparrow.

The house sparrow, Passer domesticus; a small bird with a short bill, and brown, white and gray feathers.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈspæɹəʊ/Received-Pronunciation/ˈspaɹəw/British, Southern, Standard/ˈspæɹoʊ/US/ˈspɛɹoʊ/

  1. The house sparrow, Passer domesticus; a small bird with a short bill, and brown, white and gray feathers.

  2. A member of the family Passeridae, comprising small Old World songbirds.

  3. A member of the family Passerellidae (or Emberizidae, under classification systems that subsume the New World sparrows under Emberizidae), comprising small New World songbirds.

  4. Generically, any small, nondescript bird.

  5. A quick-witted, lively person.

    London · UK
    cockney sparrow
Where this word comes from

From Middle English sparewe, sparowe, sparu, sparwe, spearewe, sperrewe, from Old English spearwa, from Proto-West Germanic *sparwō, from Proto-Germanic *sparwô, from Proto-Indo-European *spḗr (“sparrow”). Cognates Cognate with Yola sparrowe (“sparrow”), North Frisian sparag, spåri (“sparrow”), Saterland Frisian Spräie (“sparrow”), Alemannic German and Luxembourgish Spatz (“sparrow”), Dutch spreeuw (“starling”), German Spatz, Sperling (“sparrow”), Vilamovian śpielik, śpjelik, śpjeliḱ (“sparrow”), Yiddish שפּערל (shperl, “sparrow”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål spurv (“sparrow”), Faroese spurvur (“sparrow”), Norwegian Nynorsk sporv (“sparrow”), Swedish sparv (“sparrow”), Gothic 𐍃𐍀𐌰𐍂𐍅𐌰 (sparwa, “sparrow”); also Latin parra (“bird of ill omen”), Ancient Greek ψάρ (psár), ψήρ (psḗr, “starling”).

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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.