A small bird or a young bird, especially one that is diminutive in size.
Formed from 'bird' (Old English 'brid') with the diminutive suffix '-let' (from Old French '-let' meaning 'small'). This affectionate or descriptive term emphasizes smallness and is typical of English's productive diminutive system.
The '-let' suffix is wonderfully productive in English—we have chickadees that could be called birdlets, and the same suffix appears in booklet, hamlet, and piglet, showing how language builds new words by stacking tiny meaningful pieces.
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