A historical or dialectal name for a bird, possibly referring to a goldfinch or similar finch species.
Compound of 'cold' and 'finch.' The term appears in older English texts and dialectal usage but is now largely obsolete or regional. The exact etymology and which bird it referred to is uncertain.
Coldfinch is one of those bird names that disappeared from common use—people stopped calling birds by old names as ornithology developed standard scientific names! It's a ghost word haunting older texts.
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