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turkey

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

Large gallinaceous bird with fan-shaped tail.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

turkee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtɝki

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Large gallinaceous bird with fan-shaped tail; widely domesticated for food

  2. A domesticated bird of Meleagris gallopavo domesticus.

  3. uncountable

    The flesh or meat of this bird eaten as food.

  4. countable

    With a distinguishing word: a bird resembling the Meleagris gallopavo (for example, the brush turkey or bush turkey (Alectura lathami), and the water turkey (Anhinga anhinga)).

  5. Flesh of large domesticated fowl usually roasted

  6. A country located in Eastern Thrace in Southeastern Europe and Anatolia in West Asia. Official name: Republic of Türkiye. Capital: Ankara.

adjective

  1. Synonym of Turkey red ("dyed or colored Turkey red").

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Large gallinaceous bird with fan-shaped tail; widely domesticated for food

Used this way, turkey is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Flesh / large

turkey breast

Country / eurasian

european turkey

Other combinations

cold turkeymodern turkey

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • turkey buzzardnounCompound term

    A New World vulture that is common in South America and Central America and the southern United States.

  • turkey cocknounCompound term

    Male turkey.

  • turkey drumsticknounCompound term

    The lower joint of the leg of a turkey.

  • turkey legnounCompound term

    The lower joint of the leg of a turkey.

  • turkey oaknounCompound term

    Small slow-growing deciduous shrubby tree of dry sandy barrens of southeastern United States having leaves with bristle-tipped lobes resembling turkey's toes.

  • turkey rednounCompound term

    A bright orange-red color produced in cotton cloth with alizarine dye.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.