scissor-tailed

1. 1.

   (of birds) having a deeply forked tail

   “scissor-tailed birds”

   Similarcaudate

Questions about scissor-tailed

What does scissor-tailed mean?

scissor-tailed means "(of birds) having a deeply forked tail".

How many syllables are in scissor-tailed?

scissor-tailed has 3 syllables and divides as scis-sor--tailed under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is scissor-tailed a common word?

scissor-tailed is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.