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# dabchick

«dabchick» in Mova's school dictionary: **A small water bird, also called the little grebe, which…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a dabchick, dabchicks)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A small water bird, also called the little grebe, which dives under water to catch small fish and insects and often swims with only its head showing. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#m1)

2) Old name used for some other small grebes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

A river-bank bird: in The Wind in the Willows the river is busy with water birds, and a dabchick is one of the shy small divers the Rat would know. In nature lessons: grebes have lobed (not webbed) toes and build floating nests. It dives so quickly it seems to vanish.

### examples

- A dabchick bobbed up near the reeds and dived again. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x1)
- The little grebe is often called a dabchick. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x2)
- Dabchicks build floating nests of weed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x3)
- We watched a dabchick diving for tiny fish. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x4)
- The dabchick vanished under the water in a flash. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x5)
- Two dabchicks trilled loudly on the pond. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/#x6)

### note

Countable. Old country name; birdwatchers today say «little grebe».

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «dabchick» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dabchick/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.