starling

plural starlings · alternative sterling

1. A family, Sturnidae, of passerine birds.
   1. The common starling, Sturnus vulgaris, which has dark, iridescent plumage.

      Vast flights of starlings, fleeing the racket, beat across the sky at high speed, like Squall-clouds,— Evening at Noon-tide.

      1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 52, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 501

      Synonyms: European starling, stare

2. A fish, rock trout (Hexagrammos spp.), of the North Pacific, especially, Hexagrammos decagrammus, found in US waters.

   Synonyms: boregat, bodieron

plural starlings · alternative sterling

1. businessAn enclosure like a coffer-dam, formed of piles driven closely together before any structure or work, as a protection against the wash of waves, commonly used to protect the piers of a bridge.
2. One of the piles used in forming such a breakwater.

1. An English surname transferred from the nickname from a nickname for a gregarious person.

   When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint, Starling, not to be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner — to the best of my belief, the longest dance ever performed […]

   1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House

2. A male given name transferred from the surname.