noddy

noddy, tropical tern including five species in the genus Anous. The name noddy is said to derive from their easy familiarity with man. Noddies are web-footed seabirds with long wings (though shorter than those of most terns) and pointed, tapering bills. They are highly gregarious, especially during the breeding season. Of the five species, two are nearly all black in plumage (A. stolidus and A. galapagoensis) and one is white. The dark-plumaged noddy tern (A. stolidus) is the most common of all noddies. It is found throughout the S Atlantic. It does not dive for food as do most terns but rather feeds on surface-dwelling animals. It typically nests on bushes or low trees but will also build its twig nest on seaweed or even bare ground. It lays a single egg per clutch. The white fairy tern (A. albus) is distributed more widely throughout tropical seas. It lays its single egg on a tree branch or rock ledge, to which the newly hatched young clings by its remarkably powerful claws. A. albivittus and A. leucocapillus are the two intermediately colored species. Noddies are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Charadriiformes, family Laridae.

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noddy

any of several tropical terns of the genus Anous, esp A. stolidus (common noddy), typically having a dark plumage

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noddy - /nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is hello, world. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." In North America this might be called a mickey mouse program. See toy program. 3. A simple (hence the name) language to handle text and interaction on the Memotech home computer. Has died with the machine.