finch
/fɪnt͡ʃ/noun, verb
finch is a noun meaning “Any Eurasian goldfinch (of species Carduelis carduelis, syn. Fringilla carduelis)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-I-N-C-H and has one syllable, and it appears 3.5 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of finch is finches.
What does finch mean?
noun
- 1
Any Eurasian goldfinch (of species Carduelis carduelis, syn. Fringilla carduelis).
- 2
Any bird of the family Fringillidae, seed-eating passerine birds, native chiefly to the Northern Hemisphere and usually having a conical beak.
- 3
Any bird of other families of similar appearance to members of family Fringillidae.
- 4
UKdatedslangA woman.
verb
- 1
To hunt for finches, to go finching.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce finch?
- /fɪnt͡ʃ/
Finch has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-finch.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-finch.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of finch
- finches plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- finching participle, present
- finched participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is finch?
Finch appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 13,897th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Finch in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense any bird of the family Fringillidae:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pinson |
| German | Fink |
| Portuguese | fringilídeo |
| Spanish | pinzón |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does finch come from?
From Middle English fynch, from Old English finċ, from Proto-West Germanic *finki, from Proto-Germanic *finkiz (compare Dutch vink, German Fink), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pingos (“chaffinch”). Compare Welsh pinc (“finch”), Ancient Greek σπίγγος (spíngos, “chaffinch”), Russian пе́нка (pénka, “wren”), Sanskrit फिङ्गक (phiṅgaka, “drongo, shrike”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).