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jackdaw (JAK-daw) n., either of two corvids of Eurasia and North Africa with glossy black and gray (Corvus monedula) or black and white (C. dauricus) plumage.
Noted for thievery, which is to say they like to make off with shiny objects. One dictionary informs me that jackdaw is also another name for the boat-tailed grackle (Quiscalus major) of the southeastern US, but I've never heard those called anything but grackles. The name goes back to at least the 1530s, the jack part of which might be imitative of one of its many calls or might be a generic jack as in jack-of-all-trades, while the daw part is the name of some bird, though it is unclear which kind of bird in Middle English, Old English, pro-Germanic, or Proto-Indoeuropean -- cognates in European languages include names for the starling, thrush, and jackdaw.
Noted for thievery, which is to say they like to make off with shiny objects. One dictionary informs me that jackdaw is also another name for the boat-tailed grackle (Quiscalus major) of the southeastern US, but I've never heard those called anything but grackles. The name goes back to at least the 1530s, the jack part of which might be imitative of one of its many calls or might be a generic jack as in jack-of-all-trades, while the daw part is the name of some bird, though it is unclear which kind of bird in Middle English, Old English, pro-Germanic, or Proto-Indoeuropean -- cognates in European languages include names for the starling, thrush, and jackdaw.
