birb
nounUK /bɜːb/ · US /bɜɹb/
Etymology Alteration of bird. Possibly coined by Katie Gouldin on the humorous Twitter account @ProBirdRights in a 2012 tweet, although it did not become widely used until 2014.
- Near-synonyms: birdie, birdlet, birdling
- The here-then-gone-then-here-again appearance of the #birb (as Twitter loves to lovingly refer to pretty, pretty birdies) plus the internet’s instant oatmeal obsession with him inspired WIRED’s Paris Martineau to propose a different nickname for the fowl: duckboi2018 October 10, Emily Dreyfuss, “Glamour Duck and the Internet's Rabid Love of Wild Animals”, in WIRED:
1 more example
- Violent or unseemly behavior doesn’t disqualify a bird from birbness: the aggression of hummingbirds […] and brain-eating of Great Tits are immaterial to their round fluffiness. You could post a picture of any of these on reddit under "murder birb" and nobody would blink.2019 December 12, Asher Elbein, “When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide”, in Audubon: