Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Sheldrake

Shel′drake′ (shĕl′drāk′), n. [Sheld + drake.] 1. (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of large Old World ducks of the genus Tadorna and allied genera, especially the European and Asiatic species. (T. cornuta, or tadorna), which somewhat resembles a goose in form and habit, but breeds in burrows.

☞ It has the head and neck greenish black, the breast, sides, and forward part of the back brown, the shoulders and middle of belly black, the speculum green, and the bill and frontal bright red. Called also shelduck, shellduck, sheldfowl, skeelduck, bergander, burrow duck, and links goose.

☞ The Australian sheldrake (Tadorna radja) has the head, neck, breast, flanks, and wing coverts white, the upper part of the back and a band on the breast deep chestnut, and the back and tail black. The chestnut sheldrake of Australia (Casarca tadornoides) is varied with black and chestnut, and has a dark green head and neck. The ruddy sheldrake, or Braminy duck (C. rutila), and the white-winged sheldrake (C. leucoptera), are related Asiatic species.

2. Any one of the American mergansers.

☞ The name is also loosely applied to other ducks, as the canvasback, and the shoveler.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.