gyrfalcon

plural gyrfalcons · alternative gerfalcon · alternative gyr falcon · alternative jerfalcon

1. obsoleteAny large falcon, especially as used to fly at herons.

   For I obſerve, that all vvomen of your condition are like the vvomen of the Play-houſe, ſtill Piquing at each other, vvho ſhall go the beſt Dreſt, and in the Richeſt Habits: till you vvork up one another by your high flying, as the Heron and Jerfalcon do.

   1668 June 22 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), John Dryden, An Evening’s Love, or The Mock-Astrologer. […], In the Savoy [London]: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1671, →OCLC, Act IV, page 53

2. Falco rusticolus, a large bird of prey that breeds on Arctic coasts and islands of North America, Europe and Asia.

   [T]he usurper Buljan ordered that his sukkah be erected on the donjon's roof, with its […] relative nearness to the stars, among which his sky-worshiping and uncircumcised ancestors still hunted with infallible gyrfalcons for celestial game.

   2007, Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road, Sceptre, published 2008, page 132